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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF 
NORTH  CAROLINA 
AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


ENDOWED  BY  THE 
DIALECTIC  AND  PHILANTHROPIC 
SOCIETIES 


THE  WORKS 

OP 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY, 

POPULAR  EDITION. 


VOLUME  I. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
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CONFESSIONS 

.  ,y 

OF  AN 

ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER, 


AND  KINDRED  PAPERS. 


BY 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

fiifcet£itie  prejijj  <£ambrifc0C 


THE  LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  NORTH  CAROLINA 
AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


t 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1851,  by 
Ticknor  and  Fields, 

tn  the  Clerk’s  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


Copyright,  1876, 

By  HURD  AND  HOUGHTON. 


PUBLISHERS’  ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  present  edition  is  a  reissue  of  the  Works  of 
Thomas  De  Quincey.  The  series  is  based  upon  the 
American  Edition  of  De  Quincey’s  Works,  pub¬ 
lished  originally  in  twenty-two  volumes.  After 
that  edition  was  issued,  a  complete  English  edition 
was  published  in  Edinburgh  and  wais  edited  and 
revised  in  part  by  the  author.  This  edition  con¬ 
tained  changes  and  additions,  and  the  opportunity 
has  been  taken,  in  reissuing  the  American  edition, 
to  incorporate  the  new  material  which  appeared 
in  the  English  edition.  At  the  same  time,  the 
arrangement  of  the  several  productions  is  more 
systematic  and  orderly  than  was  possible  when  the 
collection  was  first  made,  at  different  intervals, 
under  difficulties  which  render  the  work  of  the 
first  editor  especially  praiseworthy.  In  the  final 
volume,  an  introduction  to  the  series  sets  forth  the 
plan  carried  out  in  this  new  arrangement,  and  that 
volume  also  contains  a  very  full  index  to  the  entire 
series.  Throughout  the  series,  the  notes  of  the 
editor  are  distinguished  from  those  of  the  author 
by  being  inclosed  in  brackets  [  J. 


FROM  THE  AUTHOR,  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITOR 

OF  HIS  WORKS.  * 


These  papers  I  am  anxious  to  put  into  the  hands  of  your 
house,  and,  so  far  as  regards  the  U.  S.,  of  your  house  exclu¬ 
sively  ;  not  with  any  view  to  further  emolument,  but  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  services  which  you  have  already  ren¬ 
dered  me :  namely,  first,  in  having  brought  together  so  widely 
scattered  a  collection,  —  a  difficulty  which  in  my  own  hands 
by  too  painful  an  experience  I  had  found  from  nervous  de¬ 
pression  to  be  absolutely  insurmountable  ;  secondly,  in  hav¬ 
ing  made  me  a  participator  in  the  pecuniary  profits  of  the 
American  edition,  without  solicitation  or  the  shadow  of  any 
expectation  on  my  part,  without  any  legal  claim  that  I  could 
plead,  or  equitable  warrant  in  established  usage,  solely  and 
merely  upon  your  own  spontaneous  motion.  Some  of  these 
new  papers,  I  hope,  will  not  be  without  their  value  in  the 
3yes  of  those  who  have  taken  an  interest  in  the  original 
series.  But  at  all  events,  good  or  bad,  they  are  now  ten¬ 
dered  to  the  appropriation  of  your  individual  house,  the 
Messrs.  Ticknor  and  Fields,  according  to  the  amplest 
extent  of  any  power  to  make  such  a  transfer  that  I  may  be 
found  to  possess  by  law  or  custom  in  America. 

I  wish  this  transfer  were  likely  to  be  of  more  value.  But 
the  veriest  trifle,  interpreted  by  the  spirit  in  which  I  offer  it, 
may  express  my  sense  of  the  liberality  manifested  throughout 
this  transaction  by  your  honorable  house. 

Ever  believe  me,  my  dear  sir, 

Your  faithful  and  obliged, 

THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY. 

*  The  stereotype  plates  of  De  Quincey’s  Works  and  the  right  of 
publication  have  passed,  by  direct  succession,  from  Ticknor  and 
Fields  to  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company 


CONTENTS 


- - *— 

nti 

CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM  EATER. 

*  From  the  Author  to  the  Reader  ....  f  j 

.  Preliminary  Confessions  .  ....  is 

.  The  Pleasures  of  Opium  .  ....  64 

*  IB  fRODU CTION  TO  THE  PAINS  OF  OPIUM  ....  63 

•  The  Tains  of  Opium . 101 

•  Appendix  . . 131 

SUSPIRIA  DE  PROFUNDIS. 

'  Introductory  Notice  .  147 

•  Part  I.  The  Affliction  of  Childhood  .  .  .  16C 

The  Palimpsest . 225 

Levana  and  our  Ladies  of  Sorrow  .  .  .  237 

The  Apparition  of  the  Brocken . 247 

Finale:  Savannah-la -mar  ......  253 

Part  II.  Vision  of  Life .  25* 

ADDITIONS  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH 
OPIUM  EATER. 

De  Quincey . 289 

My  Guardians . 2i)5 

A  Manchester  Home . 301 

At  the  Manchester  Grammar  School  ....  311 


fi 


CONTENTS. 


ffAM 

Elopement  from  Manchester  ...  •  354 

Wanderings  in  North  Wales . 374 

From  Wales  to  London . 404 

The  Plans  laid  for  London  Life  •  •  •  .  .  427 

Barbara  Lewthwaitk  .......  437 

The  Daughter  of  Lebanon  ......  445 

Notes  on  the  Use  of  Opium . 455 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING  .  .  476 

THE  ENGLISH  MAIL  COACH. 


The  Glory  of  Motion . .  517 

The  Vision  of  Sudden  Death  549 

Dream  Fugue . .  «  •  (7S 

VOTES . .  «  8®S 


PROM  THE  AUTHOR  TO  THE  READER. 


I  here  present  you,  courteous  reader,  with  th« 
record  of  a  remarkable  period  of  my  life;  accord¬ 
ing  to  my  application  of  it,  I  trust  that  it  will 
prove,  not  merely  an  interesting  record,  but,  in  a 
considerable  degree,  useful  and  instructive.  In 
that  hope  it  is  that  I  have  drawn  it  up ;  and  that 
must  be  my  apology  for  breaking  through  that  del¬ 
icate  and  honorable  reserve,  which,  for  the  most 
part,  restrains  us  from  the  public  exposure  of  our 
own  errors  and  infirmities.  Nothing,  indeed,  is 
more  revolting  to  English  feelings,  than  the  spec¬ 
tacle  of  a  human  being  obtruding  on  our  notice 
his  moral  ulcers,  or  scars,  and  tearing  away  that 
u  decent  drapery  ”  which  time,  cr  indulgence  to 
human  frailty,  may  have  drawn  over  them 
accordingly,  the  greater  part  of  our  confession*. 
vihat  is,  spontaneous  and  extra-judicial  confess 


VIII  FROM  THE  AUTHOR  TO  THE  READER. 

Bions)  proceed  from  demireps,  adventurers  01 
Bwindlers;  and  for  any  such  acts  of  gratuitous  self- 
humiliation  from  those  who  can  be  supposed  in 
sympathy  with  the  decent  and  self-respecting  part 
of  society,  we  must  look  to  French  literature,  or  to 
that  part  of  the  German  which  is  tainted  with  the 
spurious  and  defective  sensibility  of  the  French. 
All  this  I  feel  so  forcibly,  and  so  nervously  am  1 
alive  to  reproach  of  this  tendency,  that  I  have  fo* 
many  months  hesitated  about  the  propriety  of 
allowing  this,  or  any  part  of  my  narrative,  to  come 
before  the  public  eye,  until  after  my  death  (when, 
for  many  reasons,  the  whole  will  be  published) : 
and  it  is  not  without  an  anxious  review  of  the  rea¬ 
sons  for  and  against  this  step,  that  I  have,  at  last, 
concluded  on  taking  it. 

Guilt  and  misery  shrink,  by  a  natural  instinct, 
from  public  notice:  they  court  privacy  and  solitude; 
and,  even  in  the  choice  of  a  grave,  will  sometimes 
sequester  themselves  from  the  general  population 
af  the  church-yard,  as  if  declining  to  claim  fellow¬ 
ship  with  the  great  family  of  man,  and  wishing  (in 
‘die  affecting  language  of  Mr.  Wordsworth) 

- Humbly  to  express 

A  penitential  loneliness. 

It  is  well,  upon  the  whole,  and  for  the  interest  of  us 


FROM  THE  AUTHOR  TO  THE  READER.  H 

ill.  that  it  should  be  so ;  nor  would  I  willingly,  in 
my  own  person,  manifest  a  disregard  cf  such  salu¬ 
tary  feelings;  nor  in  act  or  word  do  anything  tc 
weaken  them.  But,  cn  the  one  hand,  as  my  self* 
accusation  does  not  amount  to  a  confession  of  guilt, 
so,  on  the  other,  it  is  possible  that,  if  it  did,  the  bene¬ 
fit  resulting  to  others,  from  the  record  of  an  experi¬ 
ence  purchased  at  so  heavy  a  price,  might  compen¬ 
sate,  by  a  vast  over-balance,  for  any  violence  done 
to  the  feelings  I  have  noticed,  and  justify  a  breach 
of  the  general  rule.  Infirmity  and  misery  do  not, 
of  necessity,  imply  guilt.  They  approach,  or 
recede  from,  the  shades  of  that  dark  alliance, 
in  proportion  to  the  probable  motives  and  pros¬ 
pects  of  the  offender,  and  the  palliations,  known 
or  secret,  of  the  offence ;  in  proportion  as  the 
temptations  to  it  were  potent  from  the  first,  and 
the  resistance  to  it,  in  act  or  in  effort,  was  ear¬ 
nest  to  the  last.  For  my  own  part,  without  breach 
of  truth  or  modesty,  I  may  affirm,  that  my  life  has 
been,  on  the  whole,  the  life  of  a  philosopher :  from 
my  birth  I  was  made  an  intellectual  creature ;  and 
intellectual  in  the  highest  sense  my  pursuits  and 
pleasures  have  been,  even  from  my  scnool-boy 
days.  If  opium-eating  be  a  sensual  pleasure,  and 
I  am  bound  to  confess  that  I  have  indulged 


JL  FROM  THT  AUTHOR  TO  THE  READER. 

vn  it  to  an  excess,  not  yet  recorded*  *  of  any  othei 
man,  it  is  no  less  true,  that  I  have  struggled 
against  this  fascinating  enthralment  with  a  relig¬ 
ious  zeal,  and  have  at  length  accomplished  what 
I  never  yet  heard  attributed  to  any  other  man  — 
have  untwisted,  almost  to  its  final  links,  the 
accursed  chain  which  fettered  me.  Such  a  seif- 
conquest  may  reasonably  be  set  off  in  countei  bal¬ 
ance  to  any  kind  or  degree  of  self-indulgence.  Not 
to  insist  that,  in  my  case,  the  self-conquest  was 
unquestionable,  the  self-indulgence  open  to  doubts 
of  casuistry,  according  as  that  name  shall  be 
extended  to  acts  aiming  at  the  bare  relief  of  pain, 
or  shall  be  restricted  to  such  as  aim  at  the  excite¬ 
ment  of  positive  pleasure. 

Guilt,  therefore,  Ido  not  acknowledge;  and,  if 
[  did,  it  is  possible  that  I  might  still  resolve  on  the 
present  act  of  confession,  in  consideration  of  the 
service  which  I  may  thereby  render  to  the  whole 
class  of  opium-eaters.  But  who  are  they  ?  Reader, 
l  am  sorry  to  say,  a  very  numerous  class  indeed. 
Of  this  I  became  convinced,  some  years  ago,  by 
computing,  at  that  time,  the  number  of  those  in 
one  small  class  of  English  society  (the  class  of  men 


*  “  Not  yet  recorded,)”  I  say ;  for  here  is  ob'3  celebrated  man  c 

*he  present  day,  who,  if  all  be  true  which  is  repoi  ted  of  him,  has 
reatly  exceeded  me  in  quantity. 


FROM  THE  AUTHOR  TO  THE  READFR.  XI 

iJistinguished  for  talent,  or  of  eminent  station)  whc 
were  known  to  me,  directly  or  indirectly,  as  opium* 
eaters ;  such,  for  instance,  as  the  eloquent  ana 

benevolent - j1  the  late  Dean  of  - ;2  Lord 

- ;  Mr. - ,  the  philosopher;3  a  late  under* 

secretary  of  state  (who  described  to  me  the  sensa¬ 
tion  which  first  drove  him  to  the  use  of  opium,  in 

the  very  same  words  as  the  Dean  of - ,  namely, 

“that  he  felt  as  though  rats  were  gnawing  and 

abrading  the  coats  of  his  stomach”);  Mr. - ; 

and  many  others,  hardly  less  known,  whom  it 
would  be  tedious  to  mention.  Now,  if  one  class, 
comparatively  so  limited,  could  furnish  so  many 
scores  of  cases  (and  that  within  the  knowledge 
of  one  single  inquirer),  it  was  a  natural  inference, 
that  the  entire  population  of  England  would  fur¬ 
nish  a  proportionable  number.  The  soundness  of 
this  inference,  however,  I  doubted,  until  some  facts 
became  known  to  me,  which  satisfied  me  that  it 
was  not  incorrect.  I  will  mention  two :  1.  Three 
espectable  London  druggists,  in  widely  remote 
quaiters  of  London,  from  whom  I  happened  lately 
to  be  pui chasing  small  quantities  of  opium,  assured 
me  that  the  number  of  amateur  opium-eaters  (as 
I  may  term  them)  was,  at  this  time,  immense ;  and 
that  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  these  persons 
to  whom  habit  had  rendered  opium  necessaiy 


JOI  FROM  THE  AUTHOR  TO  THE  READER. 

from  such  as  were  purchasing  it  with  a  view  to 
suicide,  occasioned  them  daily  trouble  and  d is- 
•uites.  This  evidence  respected  London  only 
But,  2  (which  will  possibly  surprise  the  reader 
more),  some  years  ago,  on  passing  through  Man¬ 
chester,  I  was  informed  by  several  cotton  manu¬ 
facturers  that  their  work-people  were  rapidly 
getting  into  the  practice  of  opium-eating ;  so  much 
so,  that  on  a  Saturday  afternoon  the  counters  of 
the  druggists  were  strewed  with  pills  of  one,  two, 
or  three  grains,  in  preparation  for  the  known 
demand  of  the  evening.  The  immediate  occa¬ 
sion  of  this  practice  was  the  lowness  of  wages, 
which,  at  that  time,  would  not  allow  them  to 
indulge  in  ale  or  spirits ;  and,  wages  rising,  it  may 
be  thought  that  this  practice  would  cease  :  but, 
as  I  do  not  readily  believe  that  any  man.  having 
once  tasted  the  divine  luxuries  of  opium,  will 
afterwards  descend  to  the  gross  and  mortal  enjoy- 
/nents  of  alcohol,  I  take  it  for  granted 

That  those  eat  now  who  never  ate  before  ; 

And  those  who  always  ate  now  eat  the  more. 


Indeed,  the  fascinating  powers  of  opium  arc 
admitted,  even  by  medical  writers  who  are  its 
greatest  enemies  :  thus,  for  instance,  Awsiter 
apothecary  to  Greenwich  Hospital,  in  his  “  Essaf 


FROM  THE  AUTHOR  TO  THE  READER. 


XH] 


dii  the  Effects  of  Opium”  (published  in  the  yeai 
1763),  when  attempting  to  explain  why  Mead  haa 
not  been  sufficiently  explicit  on  the  properties, 
counter-agents,  &c.,  of  this  drug,  expresses  him¬ 
self  in  the  following  mysterious  terms  (fovov xm 
owBToioi ) ;  “  Perhaps  he  thought  the  subject  of  too 
delicate  a  nature  to  be  made  common;  and  as 
many  people  might  then  indiscriminately  use  it, 
it  would  take  from  that  necessary  fear  and  caution, 
which  should  prevent  their  experiencing  the  exten 
give  power  of  this  drug;  for  there  are  many  'prop¬ 
erties  in  it ,  if  universally  known ,  that  would  habit¬ 
uate  the  use ,  and  make  it  more  in  request  with  us 
than  the  Turks  themselves ;  the  result  of  which 
knowledge,”  he  adds,  “must  prove  a  general  mis¬ 
fortune.”  In  the  necessity  of  this  conclusion  I  do 
not  altogether  concur  ;  but  upon  that  point  I  shah 
have  occasion  to  speak  at  the  close  of  m3 


sions,  where  I  shall  present  the  reader 
moral  of  my  narrative.4 


t 


PRELIMINARY  CONFESSIONS. 


These  preliminary  confessions,  or  introductory  nar* 
rative  of  the  youthful  adventures  which  laid  the  fouL,da« 
tion  of  the  writer’s  habit  of  opium-eating  in  after  life, 
.t  has  been  judged  proper  to  premise,  for  three  severa. 
reason?; : 


1.  Am  forestalling  that  question,  and  giving  it  a  satis¬ 
factory  answer,  which  else  would  painfully  obtrude  itself 
in  the  course  of  the  Opium  Confessions  —  “  How  cairn 
any  reasonable  being  to  subject  himself  to  such  a  yoke 
of  misery,  voluntarily  to  incur  a  captivity  so  servile, 
and  knowingly  to  fetter  himself  with  such  a  seven- 
chain  ?  — ”  a  question  which,  if  not  somewhere  ]|§|ijjj§ 
resolved,  could  hardly  fail,  by  the  indignation, 

would  be  apt  to  raise  as  against  an  act  of  waiRPfolly, 
to  interfere  with  that  degree  of  sympathy  which  is 
necessary  in  any  case  to  an  author’s  purposes. 

2.  As  furnishing  a  key  to  some  parts  of  that  tremen¬ 
dous  scenery  which  afterwards  peopled  the  dreams  of 
the  op:um-eater. 

3  As  creating  some  previous  interest  of  a  personal 
»ort  in  the  confessing  subject,  apart  from  the  matter 
the  confessions,  which  cannot  fad  to  render  thr 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


Confessions  themselves  more  interesting.  If  a  man 
“  whose  talk  is  of  oxen  ”  should  become  an  opium- 
eater,  the  probability  is,  that  (if  he  is  not  too  dull  10 
dream  at  all)  he  will  dream  about  oxen :  whereas,  in 
the  case  before  him,  the  reader  will  find  that  tie  opium- 
eater  boasteth  himself  to  be  a  philosopher ;  and  accord¬ 
ingly,  that  the  phantasmagoria  of  his  dreams  (waking 
or  sleeping,  day  dreams  or  night  dreams)  is  suitable  ta 
on 3  who  in  that  character, 


Humani  nihil  a  se  alienum  putat. 


or  amongst  the  conditions  which  he  deems  indis¬ 
pensable  to  the  sustaining  of  any  claim  to  the  title  of 
philosopher,  is  not  merely  the  possession  of  a  superb 
intellect  in  its  analytic  functions  (in  which  part  of  the 
pretension,  however,  England  can  for  some  generations 
show  but  few  claimants ;  at  least,  he  is  not  aware  of 
any  known  candidate  for  this  honor  who  can  be  styled 
emphatically  a  subtle  thinker,  with  the  exception  of 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  and,  in  a  narrower  depart¬ 
ment  of  thought  with  the  recent  illustrious  exception  * 

on  might  perhaps  have  been  added :  and  my 
g  that  exception  is  chiefly  because  it  was  only 
ts  that  the  writer  whom  I  allude  to  expressly 
addressed  himself  to  philosophical  themes  ;  his  riper  powers  have 
Deen  dedicated  (on  very  excusable  and  very  intelligible  grounds, 
under  the  present  direction  of  the  popular  mind  in  England)  it 
criticism  and  the  fine  arts.  This  reason  apart,  however,  I  doubt 
whether  he  is  not  rather  to  be  considered  an  acute  thinker  thin  a 
Bubtie  one.  It  is,  besides,  a  great  drawback  on  his  master  y  o*ei 
philosophical  subjects,  that  lie  has  obviously  not  had  the  adv^ji 
tage  of  a  regular  scholastic  education  :  he  has  not  read  Plato  in 
his  youth  (which  most  likely  was  only  his  misfortune),  bn 
leitter  has  he  read  Kant  in  his  manlmod  (which  is  nir  -•ttu) 


f  A  third  exceptii 
reason  for  not  addin 
in  his  juvenile  effor 


EIWLISH  OriUM-EATFtt. 


n 


of  David  Ricardo),- — but  also  on  suck  a  constitution 
of  the  mo  al  faculties  as  shall  give  him  an  inner  eye 
and  power  of  intuition  for  the  vision  and  mysteries  of 
human  nature:  that  constitution  of  faculties,  in  short, 
which  (amongst  all  the  generations  of  men  that  from 
the  beginning  of  time  have  deployed  into  life,  as  it 
were,  upon  this  planet)  our  English  poets  have  pos¬ 
sessed  in  the  highest  degree  —  and  Scottish*  professors 
in  the  lowest, 

I  have  often  been  asked  how  I  first  came  to  be  a 
regular  opium-eater;  and  have  suffered,  very  unjustly, 
in  the  opinion  of  my  acquaintance,  from  being  reputed 
to  have  brought  upon  myself  all  the  sufferings  which  I 
shall  have  to  record,  by  a  long  course  of  indulgence  in 
iiis  practice,  purely  for  the  sake  of  creating  an  artificial 
state  of  pleasurable  excitement.  This,  however,  is  a 
misrepresentation  of  my  case.  True  it  is,  that  foi 
nearly  ten  years  I  did  occasionally  take  opium,  for  the 
sake  of  the  exquisite  pleasure  it  gave  me ;  but,  so  long 
as  1  took  it  with  this  view,  I  was  effectually  protected 
from  all  material  bad  consequences,  by  the  necessity  of 
interposing  long  intervals  between  the  several  acts  pf 
indulgence,  in  order  to  renew  the  pleasurable  sensa¬ 
tions.  It  was  not  for  the  purpose  of  creating  pleasure 
but  of  mitigating  pain  in  the  severest  degree,  that 
1  first  began  to  use  opium  as  an  article  of  daily  diet. 
In  the  twenty-eighth  year  of  my  age,  a  most  piinfm 
affection  of  the  stomach,  which  I  had  first  experienced 
about  ten  years  before,  attacked  me  in  great  strength. 
This  affection  had  originally  been  caused  by  the  extrem- 

*  I  disclaim  any  a.^usion  to  existing  professes,  of  whom 
indeed,  1  know  only  one. 

o 


18 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


fties  of  hunger,  suffered  in  my  boyish  days.  During 
the  season  of  hope  and  redundant  happiness  which 
succeeded  (that  is,  from  eighteen  to  twenty-four)  it  had 
slumbered  :  for  the  three  following  years  it  had  revised 
at  intervals  ;  and  now,  under  unfavorable  circumstances 
from  depression  of  spirits,  it  attacked  me  with  violence 
that  yielded  to  no  remedies  but  opium.  As  the  youthful 
sufferings  which  tirst  produced  this  derangement  of  fne 
stomach  were  interesting  in  themselves  and  in  the 
circumstances  that  attended  them,  I  shall  here  briefly 
retrace  them. 

My  father  died  when  I  was  about  seven  years  old 
and  left  me  to  the  care  of  four  guardians.5  I  was  senl 
to  various  schools,  great  and  small ;  and  was  very  early 
distinguished  for  my  classical  attainments,  especially 
for  my  knowledge  of  Greek.  At  thirteen  I  wrote  Greel 
with  ease ;  and  at  fifteen  my  command  of  that  language 
was  so  great,  that  I  not  only  composed  Greek  verses  in 
lyric  metres,  but  would  converse  in  Greek  fluently,  and 
without  embarrassment  —  an  accomplishment  which  i 
have  not  since  met  with  in  any  scholar  of  my  times, 
and  which,  in  my  case,  was  owing  to  the  practice  of 
daily’"  reading  off  the  newspapers  into  the  best  Greek  1 
could  furnish  extempore;  for  the  necessity  of  ransacking 
my  memory  and  invention  for  all  sorts  and  combination? 
of  periphrastic  expressions,  as  equivalents  for  modern 
ideas,  images,  relations  cf  things,  &c.,  gave  me  a  com¬ 
pass  of  diction  which  would  never  have  been  called  out 
oy  a  dull  translation  of  moral  essays,  &c.  “  That 

boy,’*  said  one  of  my  masters,  pointing  the  attention  of 
ft  stranger  to  me,  “  that  boy  could  harangue  an  Athenian 
Biot  better  than  you  or  I  cou.d  address  an  English 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


19 


we.”  He  who  honored  me  with  this  eulogy  was  a 
ucholar,  “  and  a  ripe  and  good  one,”  and,  of  all  my 
•tutors,  was  the  only  one  whom  I  loved  or  reverenced. 
Unfortunately  for  me  (and,  as  I  afterwards  learned,  to 
this  worthy  man’s  great  indignation),  I  was  transferred 
to  the  care,  first  of  a  blockhead,  who  was  in  a  perpetual 
panic  lest  I  should  expose  his  ignorance ;  and,  finally, 
to  that  of  a  respectable  scholar,  at  the  head  of  a  great 
school  on  an  ancient  foundation.  This  man  had  been 

appointed  to  his  situation  by - College,  Oxford ;  and 

was  a  sound,  well-built  scholar,  but  (like  most  men 
whom  I  have  known  from  that  college)  coarse,  clumsy, 
and  inelegant.  A  miserable  contrast  he  presented,  in 
my  eyes,  to  the  Etonian  brilliancy  of  my  favorite 
master ;  and,  besides,  he  could  not  disguise  from  my 
hourly  notice  the  poverty  and  meagreness  of  his  under- 
standing.  It  is  a  bad  thing  for  a  boy  to  be,  and  know 
himself,  far  beyond  his  tutors,  whether  in  knowledge  or 
in  power  of  mind.  This  was  the  case,  so  lar  as 
regarded  knowledge  at  least,  not  with  myself  only ;  foi 
the  two  boys  who  jointly  with  myself  composed  the. 
first  form  were  better  Grecians  than  the  head-master, 
though  not  more  elegant  scholars,  nor  at  all  more 
uccustomed  to  sacrifice  tc  the  graces.  When  I  first 
entered,  I  remember  that  we  read  Sophocles ;  and  it 
was  a  constant  matter  of  triumph  to  us,  the  learned 
triumvirate  of  the  first  form,  to  see  our  “  Archididas* 
talus”  (as  he  loved  to  be  called)  conning  our  lesson 
oefore  we  went  up,  and  laying  a  regular  train,  with 
exicon  and  grammar,  for  blowing  up  and  blasting  (aa 
it  were)  any  difficulties  he  found  in  the  choruses 
vhilst  we  never  condescended  to  open  our  books,  unti 


>0 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


the  moment  of  going  up,  and  were  generally  employed 
in  writing  epigrams  upon  his  wig,  or  some  such  import 
ant  matter.  My  two  class-fellows  were  poor,  anc 
dependent,  for  their  future  prospects  at  the  university, 
an  the  recommendation  of  the  head-master ;  but  I,  who 
had  a  small  patrimonial  property,  the  income  of  which 
was  sufficient  to  support  me  at  college,  wished  to  be 
sent  thither  immediately.  I  made  earnest  representa¬ 
tions  on  the  subject  to  my  guardians,  but  all  to  no 
purpose.  One,  who  was  more  reasonable,  and  had 
more  knowledge  of  the  world  than  the  rest,  lived  at 
a  distance ;  two  of  the  other  three  resigned  all  their 
authority  into  the  hands  of  the  fourth  ;  and  this  fourth, 
with  whom  I  had  to  negotiate,  was  a  worthy  man,  in  his 
way,  but  haughty,  obstinate,  and  intolerant  of  all  opposi¬ 
tion  to  his  will.  After  a  certain  number  of  letters  and 
personal  interviews,  I  found  that  I  had  nothing  to  hope 
for,  not  even  a  compromise  of  the  matter,  from  my 
guardian :  unconditional  submission  was  what  he  de¬ 
manded  ;  and  I  prepared  myself,  therefore,  for  other 
measures.  Summer  was  now  coming  on  with  hasty 
steps,  and  my  seventeenth  birth-day  was  fast  approach¬ 
ing;  after  which  day  I  had  sworn  within  myself  that 
I  would  no  longer  be  numbered  amongst  school-boys.6 
Money  being  what  I  chiefly  wanted,  I  wrote  to  a  woman 
of  high  rank,7  who,  though  young  herself,  had  known 
tne  from  a  child,  and  had  latterly  treated  me  with  great 
aistinction,  requesting  that  she  would  “  lend  ”  me  five 
guineas.  For  upwards  of  a  week  no  answer  came 
ind  I  was  beginning  to  despond,  when,  at  length,  a 
servant  put  into  my  hands  a  double  letter,  with  a 
coronet  on  the  seal.  The  letter  was  kind  and  obliging 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


2, 


she  fail  wil  ter  was  on  the  sea-coast,  and  in  that  way 
the  delay  had  arisen  ,  she  enclosed  double  of  what  I 
had  asked,  and  good-naturedly  hinted,  that  if  I  should 
•lever  repay  her,  it  wou_d  not  absolutely  ruin  her.  Now 
then,  I  was  prepared  for  my  scheme :  ten  guineas, 
added  to  about  two  that  I  had  remaining  from  my  pocket 
TLoney,  seemed  to  me  sufficient  for  an  indefinite  length 
of  time ;  and  at  that  happy  age,  if  no  definite  boundary 
can  be  assigned  to  one’s  power,  the  spirit  of  hope  and 
pleasure  makes  it  virtually  infinite. 

It  is  a  just  remark  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  (and,  what  cannot 
often  be  said  of  his  remarks,  it  is  a  very  feeling  one) 
that  we  never  do  anything  consciously  for  the  last 
time  (of  things,  that  is,  which  we  have  long  been  in 
the  habit  of  doing),  without  sadness  of  heart.  This 

truth  I  felt  deeply  when  I  came  to  leave - — ,  a  place 

which  I  did  not  love,  and  where  I  had  not  been  happy. 

On  the  evening  before  I  left  -  forever,  I  grieved 

when  the  ancient  and  lofty  school-room  resounded  with 
the  evening  service,  performed  for  the  last  time  in  my 
hearing;  and  at  night,  when  the  muster-roll  of  names 
was  called  over,  and  mine  (as  usual)  was  called  first 
I  stepped  forward,  and  passing  the  head-master,  who 
was  standing  by,  I  bowed  to  him,  and  lookmg  earnestly 
in  his  face,  thinking  to  myself,  “  He  is  old  and  infirm, 
and  in  this  world  I  shall  not  see  him  again.”  I  was 
right ;  I  never  did  see  him  again,  nor  never  shall 
He  looked  at  me  complacently,  smiled  good-naturedly, 
Returned  my  salutation  (or  rather  my  valediction),  and 
parted  (though  he  knew  it  not)  forever.  I  could 
#ot  reverence  him  intellectually ;  Dut  he  had  beea 
tmlormly  kind  to  me,  and  had  al.Dwed  me  many  indul 


CONFESSION!  OF  AN 


22 

fences ;  and  I  grieved  at  the  thought  of  the  mortifica 
tion  I  should  inflict  upon  him. 

The  morning  came,  which  was  to  launch  me  into  thi 
world,  and  from  which  my  whole  succeeding  life  has 
in  many  important  points,  taken  its  coloring.  I  lodged 
in  the  head-master’s  house,  and  had  been  allowed,  from 
my  first  entrance,  the  indulgence  of  a  private  room, 
which  I  used  both  as  a  sleeping  room  and  as  a  study. 
At  half  after  three  I  rose,  and  gazed  with  deep  emotion 

at  the  ancient  towers  of - ,  “  drest  in  earliest  light,* 

and  beginning  to  crimson  with  the  radiant  lustre  of  a 
cloudless  July  morning.  I  was  firm  and  immovable  in 
my  purpose,  but  yet  agitated  by  anticipation  of  uncer« 
iain  danger  and  troubles ;  and  if  I  could  have  foreseen 
the  hurricane,  and  perfect  hail-storm  of  affliction,  which 
soon  fell  upon  me,  well  might  I  have  been  agitated. 
To  this  agitation  the  deep  peace  of  the  morning  pre¬ 
sented  an  affecting  contrast,  and  in  some  degree  a 
medicine.  The  silence  was  more  profound  than  that 
of  midnight :  and  to  me  the  silence  of  a  summer  morn¬ 
ing  is  more  touching  than  all  ,other  silence,  because,  the 
.ight  being  broad  and  strong,  as  that  of  noon-day  at 
other  seasons  of  the  year,  it  seems  to  differ  from  per¬ 
fect  day  chiefly  because  man  is  not  yet  abroad ;  and 
thus,  the  peace  of  nature,  and  of  the  innocent  creatures 
of  God,  seems  to  be  secure  and  deep,  only  so  long  as 
the  presence  of  man,  and  his  restless  and  unquiet  spirit, 
me  not  there  to  trouble  its  sarctity.  I  dressed  myself, 
took  my  hat  and  gloves,  and  lingered  a  little  in  the 
room.  For  the  last  year  and  s  half  this  room  had  been 
my  “  pensive  citadel :  ”  here  had  read  and  studied 
trough  aL  the  hours  of  night;  and,  though  true  it  was 


ENGLISH  OHtM-EATER. 


23 


that,  for  the  latter  part  of  this  time,  I,  who  ivas  framed 
for  love  and  gentle  affections,  had  lost  my  gayetv  and 
happiness,  during  the  strife  and  fever  of  contention 
with  my  guardian,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  boy  so 
passionately  fond  of  books,  and  dedicated  to  intellectual 
pursuits,  1  could  not  fail  to  have  enjoyed  many  happy 
hours  in  the  midst  of  general  dejection.  I  wept  as  1 
looked  round  on  the  chair,  hearth,  writing-table,  and 
other  familiar  objects,  knowing  too  certainly  that  1 
looked  upon  them  for  the  last  time.  Whilst  I  write 
this,  it  is  eighteen  years  ago ;  and  yet,  at  this  moment,  I 
see  distinctly,  as  if  it  were  but  yesterday,  the  lineaments 
and  expressions  of  the  object  on  which  I  fixed  my  parting 

gaze :  it  was  a  picture  of  the  lovely - ,  which  hung 

over  the  mantel-piece ;  the  eyes  and  mouth  of  which 
were  so  beautiful,  and  the  whole  countenance  so  rauiant 
with  benignity  and  divine  tranquillity,  that  I  had  a 
thousand  times  laid  down  my  pen,  or  my  book,  to 
i [  ither  consolation  from  it,  as  a  devotee  from  his  patron 
saint.  Whilst  I  was  yet  gazing  upon  it,  the  deep  tones 

of  - - clock  proclaimed  that  it  was  four  o’clock.  I 

went  up  to  the  picture,  kissed  it,  and  then  gently  walked 
at,  and  closed  the  door  forever ! 

1 Le  AC  «WU  s Jr 

W  *7v*  TP*  *Jv  TV  T^* 

So  blended  and  intertwisted  in  this  life  are  occasions 
»,  laughter  and  of  tears,  that  I  cannot  yet  recall,  without 
an  iking,  an  incident  which  occurred  at  that  time,  and 
which  had  nearly  put  a  stop  to  the  immediate  execution 
if  my  plan.  I  had  a  trunk  of  immense  weight;  for, 
Iksides  my  clothes,  it  contained  nearly  all  my  library. 
1  he  difficulty  was  to  get  this  removed  to  a  carrier’s . 
a.y  room  was  at  an  aerial  elevation  in  the  house,  and 


24 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


(what  was  worse)  the  staircase  which  communicated 
with  this  angle  of  the  building  was  accessible  only  by 
a  gallery,  which  passed  the  head-master’s  chamber- 
door.  I  was  a  favorite  with  all  the  servants;  and 
knowing  that  any  of  +hem  would  screen  me,  and  act 
confidentially,  I  communicated  my  embarrassment  to  a 
groom  of  the  head-master’s.  The  groom  swore  he 
would  do  anything  I  wished ;  and,  when  the  time 
arrived,  went  up  stairs  to  bring  the  trunk  down.  This 
I  feared  was  beyond  the  strength  of  any  one  man : 
however,  the  groom  was  a  man 

Of  Atlantean  shoulders,  fit  to  bear 

The  weight  of  mightiest  monarchies  ; 

nd  had  a  back  as  spacious  as  Salisbury  Plains.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  he  persisted  in  bringing  down  the  trunk 
alone,  whilst  I# stood  waiting  at  the  foot  of  the  last 
flight,  in  anxiety  for  the  event.  For  some  time  I  heard 
him  descending  with  slow  and  firm  steps;  but,  unfor¬ 
tunately,  from  his  trepidation,  as  he  drew  near  the 
dangerous  quarter,  within  a  few  steps  of  the  gallery 
his  foot  slipped ;  and  the  mighty  burden,  falling  from 
his  shoulders,  gained  such  increase  of  impetus  at  each 
step  of  the  descent,  that,  on  reaching  the  bottom,  it 
trundled,  or  rather  leaped,  right  across,  with  the  noise 
of  twenty  devils,  against  the  very  bed-room  door  of  the 
archididascalus.  My  first  thought  was,  that  all  was  lost , 
and  that  my  only  chance  for  executing  a  retreat  was 
to  sacrifice  my  baggage.  However,  on  reflection,  1 
determined  to  abide  the  issue.  The  groom  was  in  the 
utmost  alarm,  both  on  his  own  account  and  on  mine 
but,  in  spite  of  this,  so  irresistibly  had  the  sense  of  the 

ndicrous,  in  this  unhappy  contretems  taken  possessios 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER, 


25 


if  his  fancy,  that  he  sang  out  a  long,  loud,  and  canorous 
peal  of  laughter,  that  might  have  wakened  the  Seven 
Sleepers.  At  the  sound  of  this  resonant  merriment, 
within  the  very  ears  of  insulted  authority,  I  could  not 
forbear  joining  in  it,  subdued  to  this,  not  so  much  by 
the  unhappy  etourderie  of  the  trunk,  as  by  the  effect  it 
had  upon  the  groom.  We  both  expected,  as  a  matter 

of  course,  that  Dr. - would  sally  out  of  his  room  j 

for,  in  general,  if  but  a  mouse  stirred,  he  sprang  out 
like  a  mastiff  from  his  kennel.  Strange  to  say,  how¬ 
ever,  on  this  occasion,  when  the  noise  of  laughter  had 
ceased,  no  sound,  or  rustling  even,  was  to  be  heard 

in  the  bed-room.  Dr.  -  had  a  painful  complaint 

which  sometimes  keeping  him  awake,  made  him  sleep, 
perhaps,  when  it  did  come,  the  deeper.  Gathering 
courage  from  the  silence,  the  groom  hoisted  his  burden 
again,  and  accomplished  the  remainder  of  his  descent 
without  accident.  I  waited  until  I  saw  the  trunk  placed 
on  a  wheelbarrow,  and  on  its  road  to  the  carrier’s :  then, 
“  with  Providence  my  guide,”  I  set  off  on  foot,  carry 
Ing  a  small  parcel,  with  some  articles  of  dress  under 
.my  arm  :  a  favorite  English  poet  in  one  pocket ;  and  a 
imall  12mo  volume,  containing  about  nine  plays  of 
Euripides,  in  the  other. 

It  had  been  my  intention,  or  ginally,  to  proceed  t® 

'  Vestmoreland,  both  from  the  love  I  bore  to  that  county, 
and  on  other  personal  accounts.  Accident,  however 
grave  a  different  direction  to  my  wanderings,  and  I  bent 
nvy  steps  towards  North  Wales.8 

After  wandering  about  for  some  +ime  in  Denbigh* 
•hire,  Merionethshire,  and  Caernarvonshire,  I  took 
odgmgs  in  a  small  nea;  house  in  B - 9  Here  I  mighi 


£6 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AlS 


nave  staid  with  great  comfort  for  many  weeks ;  fa 

provisions  were  cheap  at  B - ,  from  the  scarcity  ot 

other  markets  for  the  surplus  products  of  a  wide  agri 
cultural  district.  An  accident,  however,  in  which 
perhaps,  no  offence  was  designed,  drove  me  out  to 
wander  again.  I  know  not  whether  my  reader  maf 
have  remarked,  but  I  have  often  remarked,  that  the 
proudest  class  of  people  in  England  (or,  at  any  rate 
the  class  whose  pride  is  most  apparent)  are  the  families 
of  bishops.  Noblemen,  and  their  children,  carry  about 
with  them,  in  their  very  titles,  a  sufficient  notification 
of  their  rank.  Nay,  their  very  names  (and  this  applies 
also  to  the  children  of  many  untitled  houses)  are  often, 
to  the  English  ear,  adequate  exponents  of  high  birth,  or 
descent.  Sackville,  Manners,  Fitzroy,  Paulet,  Caven¬ 
dish,  and  scores  of  others,  tell  their  own  tale.  Such 
persons,  therefore,  find  everywhere  a  due  sense  of 
their  claims  already  established,  except  among  those 
who  are  ignorant  of  the  world,  by  virtue  of  their  own 
obscurity ;  “  Not  to  know  them  argues  one’s  self  un¬ 
known.”  Their  manners  take  a  suitable  tone  and 
coloring;  and,  for  once  that  they  find  it  necessary  to 
impress  a  sense  of  their  consequence  upon  others,  they 
meet  with  a  thousand  occasions  for  moderating  and 
tempering  this  sense  by  acts  of  courteous  condescension 
With  the  families  of  bishops  it  is  otherwise  ;  with  them 
it  is  all  up-hill  work  to  make  known  their  pretensions ; 
Snr  the  proportion  of  the  episcopal  bench  taken  from 
ruble  families  is  not  at  any  t.me  very  large ;  and  the 
succession,  to  these  dignities  is  so  rapid,  that  the  public 
car  seldom  has  time  to  become  familiar  with  them 
anless  where  they  are  connected  with  some  literar? 


ENGLISH  ©riUM-EATER. 


21 


Ksputation  Hence  it  is  that  the  children  of  bishopj 
larry  about  with  them  an  austere  and  repulsive  air, 
indicative  of  claims  not  generally  acknowledged,  — a  sort 
of  noli  mt  tangere  manner,  nervously  apprehensive  of 
too  familiar  approach,  and  shrinking  with  the  sensitive¬ 
ness  of  a  gouty  man,  from  all  contact  with  the  ol  TtolXot,. 
Doubtless,  a  powerful  understanding,  or  unusual  good¬ 
ness  of  nature,  will  preserve  a  man  from  such  weakness ; 
but,  in  general,  the  truth  of  my  representation  will  fc® 
acknowledged ;  pride,  if  not  of  deeper  root  in  such 
families,  appears,  at  least,  more  upon  the  surface  of  theii 
manners.  This  spirit  of  manners  naturally  communi¬ 
cates  itself  to  their  domestics,  and  other  dependants. 
Now,  my  landlady  had  been  a  lady’s  maid,  or  a  nurse 

»n  the  family  of  the  Bishop  of - — ;  and  had  but  lately 

married  away  and  “  settled”  (as  such  people  express 

’t)  for  life.  In  a  little  town  like  B - ,  merely  to  have 

Rve d  in  the  bishop’s  family  conferred  some  distinction ; 
and  my  good  landlady  had  rather  more  than  her  share 
of  the  pride  I  have  noticed  on  that  score.  What  “  my 
lord”  said,  and  what  “  my  lord ”  did, —how  useful  he 
was  in  parliament,  and  how  indispensable  at  Oxford, — 
'ormed  the  daily  burden  of  her  talk.  All  this  I  bore 
very  well ;  for  I  was  too  good-natured  to  laugh  in  any- 
Dody’s  face,  and  I  could  make  an  ample  allowance  for 
the  garrulity  of  an  old  servant.  Of  necessity,  however, 
t  must  have  appeared  in  her  eyes  very  inadequately 
n  pressed  with  the  bishop’s  importance ;  and,  perhaps- 
«o  punish  me  for  my  indifference,  or,  possibly,  by  ac¬ 
cident,  she  one  day  repeated  to  me  a  conversation  in 
which  I  was  indirectly  a  oarty  concerned.  She  had 
oeen  to  the  palace  to  pay  he**  respects  to  the  family 


28 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


and,  dinner  being  over,  was  summoned  into  the  dining 
room.  In  giving  an  account  of  her  household  economy, 
she  happened  to  mention  that  she  bad  let  her  apart* 
menis.  Thereupon  the  good  bishop  (it  seemed)  hac 
taken  occasion  to  caution  her  as  to  her  selection  of 
mmates ;  “  for,”  said  he,  “  you  must  recollect,  Betty, 
that  this  place  is  in  the  high  road  to  the  Head ;  so  thaS 
multitudes  of  Irish  swindlers,  running  away  from  their 
debts  into  England,  and  of  English  swindlers,  running 
away  from  their  debts  to  the  Isle  of  Man,  are  likely  to 
take  this  place  in  their  route.”  This  advice  was  cer¬ 
tainly  not  without  reasonable  grounds,  but  rather  fitted 
to  be  stored  up  for  Mrs.  Betty’s  private  meditations, 
than  specially  reported  to  me.  What  followed,  how¬ 
ever,  was  somewhat  worse  :  —  “  O,  my  lord,”  answered 
my  landlady  (according  to  her  own  representation  of 
the  matter),  “I  really  don’t  think  this  young  gentleman 
is  a  swindler;  because — — “  You  don’t  think  me  a 
swindler?”  said  I,  interrupting  her,  in  a  tumult  of  in¬ 
dignation  ;  “  for  the  future,  I  shall  spare  you  the  trouble 
of  thinking  about  it.”  And  without  delay  I  prepared 
for  my  departure.  Some  concessions  the  good  woman 
teemed  disposed  to  make ;  but  a  harsh  and  contemptu¬ 
ous  expression,  which  I  fear  that  I  applied  to  the  learned 
dignitary  himself,  roused  her  indignation  in  turn ;  and 
^conciliation  then  became  impossible.  I  was,  indeed, 
greatly  irritated  at  the  bishop’s  having  suggested  any 
grounds  of  suspicion,  however  remotely,  against  a  person 
wnom  he  had  never  seen;  and  I  thought  of  letting  him 
know  my  mind  in  Greek ;  which,  at  the  same  time 
mat  it  would  furnish  some  presumption  that  I  was  ne 
swindler  would  also  (I  hoped)  compel  the  bishop  tt 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


2B 

?eply  in  the  same  language ,  in  which  case,  [  doubted 
not  to  make  it  appear,  that  if  I  was  njt  so  rich  as  his 
lordship,  I  was  a  far  better  Grecian.  Calmer  thoughts, 
nowever;  drove  this  boyish  design  out  of  my  mind :  foi 
1  considered  that  the  bishop  was  in  the  right  to  counsel 
an  old  servant ;  that  he  could  not  have  designed  that 
his  advice  should  be  reported  to  me;  and  that  the  same 
coarseness  of  mind  which  had  led  Mrs.  Betty  to  repeat 
the  advice  at  all  might  have  colored  it  in  a  way  more 
agreeable  to  her  own  style  of  thinking  than  to  the 
actual  expressions  of  the  worthy  bishop. 

I  left  the  lodging  the  very  same  hour  ;10  and  this  turned 
out  a  very  unfortunate  occurrence  for  me,  because, 
living  henceforward  at  inns,  I  was  drained  of  my  money 
very  rapidly.  In  a  fortnight  I  was  reduced  to  short 
allowance ;  that  is,  I  could  allow  myself  only  one  meal 
a  day.  From  the  keen  appetite  produced  by  constant 
exercise  and  mountain  air,  acting  on  a  youthful  stomach, 
I  soon  began  to  suffer  greatly  on  this  slender  regimen  ; 
for  the  single  meal  which  I  could  venture  to  order  was 
coffee  or  tea.  Even  this,  however,  was  at  length  with' 
drawn  ;  and,  afterwards,  so  long  as  I  remained  in  Wales, 
I  subsisted  either  on  blackberries,  hips,  haws,  &c.,  or  on 
the  casual  hospitalities  which  I  now  and  then  received, 
in  return  for  such  little  services  as  I  had  an  opportunity 
of  rendering.  Sometimes  I  wrote  letters  of  business 
for  cottagers  who  happened  to  have  relatives  in  Liver¬ 
pool  or  in  London ;  more  often  I  wrote  love-letters  to 
their  sweethearts  for  young  wom‘3n  who  had  lived  as 
“ervants  in  Shrewsbury,  or  other  towns  on  the  English 
border.  On  all  such  occasions  I  gave  great  satisfaction 
%)  my  humble  frier.ds,  and  was  generally  treated  with 


so 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


hospitality;  and  once,  in  particular,  near  the  village  cf 
Llan-y-styndwr  (or  some  such  name),  in  a  sequestered 
part  of  Merionethshire,  I  was  entertained  for  upwards 
of  three  days  by  a  family  of  young  people,  with  an 
ftfFectrnate  and  fraternal  kindness  that  left  an  impres¬ 
sion  upon  my  heart  not  yet  impaired.  The  family  con* 
sisted,  at  that  time,  of  four  sisters  and  three  brothers,  al, 
grown  up,  and  remarkable  for  elegance  and  delicacy  of 
manners.  So  much  beauty,  and  so  much  native  good 
breeding  and  refinement,  I  do  not  remember  to  have 
seen  before  or  since  in  any  cottage,  except  once  or 
twice  in  Westmoreland  and  Devonshire.  They  spoke 
English ;  an  accomplishment  not  often  met  with  in  so 
many  members  of  one  family,  especially  in  villages 
.emote  from  the  high  road.  Here  I  wrote,  on  my  first 
introduction,  a  letter  about  prize-money,  for  one  of  the 
brothers,  who  had  served  on  board  an  English  man-of- 
war;  and,  more  privately,  two  love-letters  for  two  of  the 
sisters.  They  were  both  interesting  looking  girls,  and 
one  of  uncommon  loveliness.  In  the  midst  of  their 
confusion  and  blushes,  whilst  dictating,  or  rather  giving 
me  general  instructions,  it  did  not  require  any  great 
penetration  to  discover  that  what  they  wished  was  that 
their  letters  should  be  as  kind  as  was  consistent  with 
pioper  maidenly  pride  I  contrived  so  to  temper  my 
expressions  as  to  reconcile  the  gratification  of  both 
feelings  *  and  they  were  much  pleased  with  the  way  in 
•vhich  1  had  expressed  their  thoughts,  as  (in  their  sim¬ 
plicity)  they  were  astonished  at  my  having  so  readily 
iiscovered  them.  The  reception  one  meets  with  frons 
<he  women  of  a  family  generally  determines  the  teno 
fcf  one's  whole  entertainment.  In  this  case  I  had  dis 


£  f  jLISH  OPIUM-E/Ai, 


ii 


charged  my  emfidential  duties  as  secretary  so  much 
to  the  general  satisfaction,  perhaps  also  amusing  them 
with  my  conversation,  that  I  was  pressed  to  stay  with  a 
cordiality  which  I  had  little  inclination  to  resist.  1  slept 
with  the  brothers,  the  only  unoccupied  bed  standing  in 
the  apartment  of  the  young  women  :  but  in  all  other 
points  they  treated  me  with  a  respect  not  usually  paid 
to  purses  as  light  as  mine;  as  if  my  scholarship  were 
sufficient  evidence  that  I  was  of  “  gentle  blood.”  Thus 
[  lived  with  them,  for  three  days,  and  great  part  of  a 
fourth;  and,  from  the  undiminished  kindness  which  they 
continued  to  show  me,  I  believe  I  might  have  staid  with 
them  up  to  this  time,  if  their  power  had  corresponded 
with  their  wishes.  On  the  last  morning,  however,  I 
perceived  upon  their  countenances,  as  they  sate  at 
breakfast,  the  expression  of  some  unpleasant  communi¬ 
cation  which  was  at  hand  ;  and  soon  after,  one  of  the 
brothers  explained  to  me,  that  their  parents  had  gone, 
the  day  before  my  arrival,  to  an  annual  meeting  of 
Methodists,  held  at  Caernarvon,  and  were  that  day 
expected  to  return  ;  “  and  if  they  should  not  be  so  civil 
as  they  ought  to  be,”  he  begged,  on  the  part  of  all  the 
young  people,  that  I  would  not  take  it  amiss.  The 
parents  returned  with  churlish  faces,  and  “  Dym  Sas - 
~&nach”  ( no  English)  in  answer  to  all  my  addresses.  1 
vaw  how  matters  stood ;  and  so,  taking  an  affectionate 
eave  of  my  kind  and  interesting  young  hosts,  I  went 
my  way.  For,  though  they  spoke  warmly  to  their 
parents  in  my  behalf,  and  often  excused  the  manner  of 
ue  old  people,  by  saying  that  it  was  “  only  their  way,” 
pet  I  easily  understood  that  my  talent  for  writing  love* 
etters  would  do  as  little  to  recommend  me  with  twa 


9 

w 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


grave  sexagenarian  Welsh  Methodists  as  my  Greek 
Sapphics  or  Alcaics ;  and  what  had  been  Hospitality 
ivhen  offered  to  me  with  the  gracious  courtesy  of  mj 
young  friends,  would  become  charity,  when  connected 
with  the  harsh  demeanor  of  these  old  people.  Cer¬ 
tainly,  Mr.  Shelley  is  right  in  his  notions  about  cld 
age ;  unless  powerfully  counteracted  by  all  sorts  of 
apposite  agencies,  it  is  a  miserable  corrupter  and 
blighter  to  the  genial  charities  of  the  human  heart. 

Soon  after  this,  I  contrived,  by  means  which  I  must 
omit  for  want  of  room,  to  transfer  myself  to  London.11 
And  now  began  the  latter  and  fiercer  stage  of  my  long 
Bufferings ;  without  using  a  disproportionate  expression, 
I  might  say,  of  my  agony.  For  I  now  suffered,  for 
upwards  of  sixteen  weeks,  the  physical  anguish  of 
hunger  in  various  degrees  of  intensity;  but  as  bitter, 
perhaps,  as  ever  any  human  being  can  have  suffered 
who  has  survived  it.  I  would  not  needlessly  harass  my 
reader’s  feelings  by  a  detail  of  all  that  I  endured ;  fo. 
extremities  such  as  these,  under  any  circumstances  of 
heaviest  misconduct  or  guilt,  cannot  be  contemplated, 
even  in  description,  without  a  rueful  pity  that  is  painful 
to  the  natural  goodness  of  the  human  heart.  Let  it 
•uffice,  at  least  on  this  occasion,  to  say,  that  a  few 
fragments  of  bread  from  the  breakfast-table  of  one 
individual  (who  supposed  me  to  be  ill,  but  did  not  know 
)f  my  being  in  utter  want),  and  these  at  uncertain 
intervals,  constituted  my  whole  support.  During  the 
forme:  ptrt  of  my  sufferings  (that  is,  generally  in 
Wales,  ard  always  for  the  first  two  months  in  London) 

.  was  houseless,  and  very  seldom  slept  under  a  ror»£ 
To  this  constant  exposure  to  the  open  air  [  ascribe  it 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


33 

H-imly,  that  1  did  not  sink  under  my  torments.  Latterly 
However,  when  cold  and  more  inclement  weather  came 
jn,  and  when,  from  the  length  of  my  sufferings,  I  had 
Degun  to  sink  into  a  more  languishing  condition,  it  was, 
no  doubt,  fortunate  for  me,  that  the  same  person  to 
whose  breakfast-table  I  had  access  allowed  me  to  sleep 
in  a  large,  unoccupied  house,  of  wnicn  lie  was  tenant, 
Unoccupied,  I  call  it,  for  there  was  no  household  or 
establishment  in  it;  noi  any  furniture,  indeed,  except  a 
table  and  a  few  chairs.  But  I  found,  on  taking  pos¬ 
session  of  my  new  quarters,  that  the  house  already 
contained  one  single  inmate,  a  poor,  friendless  child 
apparently  ten  years  old ;  but  she  seemed  hungt. 
bitten ;  and  sufferings  of  that  sort  often  make  children 
look,  older  than  they  are.  From  this  forlorn  child  I 
learned,  that  she  had  slept  and  lived  there  alone,  for 
some  time  before  I  came ;  and  great  joy  the  poor  crea¬ 
ture  expressed,  when  she  found  that  I  was  in  future 
be  her  companion  through  the  hours  of  darkness.  The 
house  was  large ;  and,  from  the  want  of  furniture,  the 
noise  of  the  rats  made  a  prodigious  echoing  on  the 
pacious  staircase  and  hall ;  and,  amidst  the  real  fleshly 
ills  of  cold,  and,  I  fear,  hunger,  the  forsaken  child  had 
found  leisure  to  suffer  still  more  (it  appeared)  from  the 
elf- created  one  of  ghosts.  I  promised  her  protection 
against  all  ghosts  whatsoever ;  but,  alas !  I  could  offer 
her  no  other  assistance.  We  lav  upon  the  floor,  with  a 
bundle  of  cursed  law  papers  for  a  pillow,  but  with  no 
tftner  covering  than  a  sort  of  large  horseman’s  cloak ; 
afterwards,  however,  we  discovered,  in  a  garret,  an  old 
jfa-cover,  a  small  piece  of  rug,  anti  some  fragments  of 
vher  articles,  which  added  a  Lttle  to  our  warmth  The 

3 


34 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


poor  child  crept  close  to  me  for  warmth,  and  for  secu¬ 
rity  against  her  ghostly  enemies.  When  I  was  net 
more  "har.  usually  ill,  I  took  her  into  my  arms,  so  that, 
general,  she  was  tolerably  warm,  and  often  dept 
when  1  could  not;  for,  during  the  last  two  months  of  my 
sufferings,  I  slept  much  in  the  daytime,  and  was  apt  to 
fall  into  transient  dozings  at  all  hours.  But  my  sleep 
distressed  me  more  than  my  watching;  for,  besides  the 
tumultuousness  of  my  dreams  (which  were  only  not  so 
awful  as  those  which  I  shall  have  to  describe  hereafter 
as  produced  by  opium),  my  sleep  was  never  more  than 
what  is  called  dog-sleep  ;  so  that  I  could  hear  myself 
moaning,  and  was  often,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  awakened 
suddenly  by  my  own  voice.;  and,  about  this  time,  a 
hideous  sensation  began  to  haunt  me  as  soon  as  I  fell 
into  a  slumber,  which  has  since  returned  upon  me,  at 
different  periods  of  my  life,  namely,  a  sort  of  twitching 
fl  know  not  where,  but  apparently  about  the  region  of 
the  stomach),  which  compelled  me  violently  to  throw  out 
my  feet  for  the  sake  of  relieving  it.  This  sensation 
coming  on  as  soon  as  I  began  to  sleep,  and  the  effort  to 
relieve  it  constantly  awaking  me,  at  length  I  slept  only 
from  exhaustion ;  and,  from  increasing  weakness  (as  1 
said  before',  I  was  constantly  falling  asleep,  and  con* 
stantly  awaking.  Meantime,  the  master  of  the  house 
sometimes  came  in  upon  us  suddenly,  and  very  early ; 
sometimes  not  till  ten  o’clock;  sometimes  not  at  all. 
He  was  in  constant  fear  of  bailiffs;  improving  on  the 
plan  of  Cromwell,  every  night  he  slept  in  a  different 
auarter  of  London  ;  and  I  observed  that  he  never  failed 
to  examine,  through  a  private  window,  the  appearance 
S?  fclrose  who  knocked  at  the  door,  before  he  would 


ENGLISH  OITUM‘EAT£.T£. 


2b 


allow  it  to  be  opened.  He  breakfasted  alone;  indeed, 
his  tea  equipage  would  hardly  have  admitted  of  his 
hazarding  an  invitation  to  a  second  person,  an};  more 
than  die  quantity  of  esculent  material ,  which,  for  the 
most  part,  was  little  more  than  a  roll,  or  a  few  biscuits 
which  he  had  bought  on  his  road  from  the  place  whera 
he  had  slept.  Or,  if  he  had  asked  a  party,  as  I  once 
learnedly  and  facetiously  observed  to  him,  the  severs 
members  of  it  must  have  stood  in  the  relation  to  each 
other  (not  sate  m  any  relation  whatever)  of  succession, 
as  the  metaphysicians  have  it,  and  not  of  coexistence; 
in  the  relation  of  parts  of  time,  and  not  of  the  parts 
of  space.  During  his  breakfast,  1  generally  contrived 
a  reason  for  lounging  in;  and,  with  an  air  of  as  much 
indifference  as  I  could  assume,  took  up  such  fragment? 
as  he  had  left,  —  sometimes,  indeed,  there  were  none 
&l  all.  In  doing  this,  I  committed  no  robbery,  except 
upon  the  man  himself,  who  was  thus  obliged  (I  be¬ 
lieve),  now  and  then,  to  send  out  at  noon  for  an  extra 
oiscuit ;  for,  as  to  the  poor  child,  she  was  never  admitted 
r.to  his  study  (if  I  may  give  that  name  to  his  chief  de- 
!??itory  of  parchments,  law  writings,  &c.) ;  that  room 
was  to  her  the  Blue-beard  room  of  the  house,  being 
regularly  locked  or  his  departure  to  dinner,  about  six 
Vclock,  which  usually  was  his  final  departure  for  the 
r  ght.  Whether  this  child  was  an  illegitimate  daugh* 
\tT  of  Mr. - ,12  or  only  a  servant,  I  could  not  ascer¬ 

tain  ;  she  did  not  herself  know;  but  certainly  she  wa3 
treated  altogether  as  a  menial  servant.  No  sooner  did 

Mr.  -  make  his  appearance,  than  she  went  below 

stairs,  brushed  his  shoes,  coal.,  &c. ;  and,  except  when 
she  was  summoned  to  run  an  errand,  she  never  emerged 


CONFESSIONS  Ut  AN 


36 

fron.  the  dismal  Tartarus  of  the  kitchens,  to  the  uppcl 
*.ir,  until  my  welcome  knock  at  night  called  up  hei 
ht+le  trembling  footsteps  to  the  front  door.  Of  her  life 
luring  the  daytime,  however,  I  knew  little  but  what 
1  gathered  from  her  own  account  at  night;  for,  as  soon 
43  the  hours  of  business  commenced,  I  saw  that  my 
,  L  bsence  would  be  acceptable ;  and,  in  general,  there¬ 
fore,  1  went  off  and  sate  in  the  parks,  or  elsewhere, 
until  night-fall. 

But  who,  and  what,  meantime,  was  the  master  of  the 
flouse,  himself?  Reader,  he  was  one  of  those  anoma¬ 
lous  practitioners  in  lower  departments  of  the  law,  who 
—  what  shall  I  say?  —  who,  on  prudential  reasons,  or 
from  necessity,  deny  themselves  all  the  indulgence  in 
the  luxury  of  too  delicate  a  conscience  (a  periphrasis 
which  might  be  abridged  considerably,  but  that  I  leave 
to  the  reader’s  taste) ;  in  many  walks  of  life,  a  con¬ 
science  is  a  more  expensive  incumbrance  than  a  wife 
or  a  carriage  ;  and  just  as  people  talk  of  “  laying  down  ” 

their  carriages,  so  I  suppose  my  friend,  Mr. - ,  had 

‘‘laid  down”  his  conscience  for  a  time;  meaning,  doubt 
less,  to  resume  it  as  soon  as  he  could  afford  it.  The 
inner  economy  of  such  a  man’s  daily  life  would  present 
a  most  strange  picture,  if  I  could  allow  myself  to  amuse 
the  reader  at  his  expense.  Even  with  my  limited 
opportunities  for  observing  what  went  on,  I  saw  many 
icenes  of  London  intrigues,  and  complex  chicanery, 
‘cycle  and  epicycle,  orb  in  orb,”  at  which  I  sometimes 
*mile  to  this  day,  and  at  which  I  smiled  then,  in  spite 
u'  my  misery.  My  situation,  however,  at  that  time 
gave  me  litOe  experience,  in  my  own  person,  of  any 
lualities  in  Mr. - ’s  character  but  such  as  did  hits 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER 


31 

honor;  and  of  his  whole  strange  composition,  I  must 
forget  everything  but  that  towards  me  he  was  obliging, 
and,  to  the  extent  of  his  power,  generous. 

That  power  was  not,  indeed,  very  extensive.  How¬ 
ever,  in  common  with  the  rats,  I  sate  rent  free ,  and  as 
Dr.  Johnson  has  recurded  that  he  never  but  cnce  in  Vii 

life  had  as  much  wall-fruit  as  he  could  eat,  so  let  ms 

be  grateful  that,  on  that  single  occasion,  I  had  as  large 
a  choice  of  apart  me  its  in  a  London  mansion  as  I  could 
possibly  desne.  Except  the  Blue-beard  room,  which 
the  poor  child  believed  to  be  haunted,  all  others,  from 
the  attics  to  the  cellars,  were  at  our  service.  “  The 

world  was  all  before  us,”  and  we  pitched  our  tent  for 

the  night  in  any  spot  we  chose.  This  house  1  have 
already  described  as  a  large  one.  It  stands  in  a  con¬ 
spicuous  situation,  and  in  a  well-known  part  ol  London.13 
Many  of  my  readers  will  have  passed  it,  I  doubt  not, 
within  a  few  hours  of  reading  this.  For  myself,  I 
never  fail  to  visit  it  when  business  draws  me  to  Lon¬ 
don.  About  ten  o’clock  this  very  night,  August  15, 
1821,  being  my  birth-day,14  I  turned  aside  from  my 
evening  walk,  down  Oxford-street,  purposely  to  take  a 
glance  at  it.  It  is  now  occupied  by  a  respectable 
family,  and,  by  the  lights  in  the  front  drawing-room,  I 
observed  a  domestic  party,  assembled,  perhaps,  at  tea, 
and  apparently  cheerful  and  gay;  —  marvellous  contrast, 
m  my  eyes,  to  the  darkness,  cold,  silence,  and  desoia-- 
tion,  of  that  same  house  eighteen  years  ago,  when  its 
nightly  occupants  were  one  famishing  scholar  and  a 
neglected  child.  Her,  by  the  by.  in  after  years,  I  vainN 
endeavored  to  trace.  Apan  from  her  situation,  she  was 
&ot  what  would  be  called  an  interesting  child.  She 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


SB 

s\as  neither  pretty,  nor  quick  in  understanding,  nc* 
remarkably  pleasing  in  manners  But,  thank  God 
even  in  those  years  I  needed  not  the  embellishments  of 
novel  accessories  to  conciliate  my  affections.  Plain 
human  nature,  in  its  humblest  and  most  homely  apparel 
was  enough  for  me ;  and  I  loved  the  child  because  shs 
was  my  partner  in  wretchedness.  If  she  is  now  living, 
she  is  probably  a  mother,  with  children  of  her  own;  but, 
as  I  have  said,  I  could  never  trace  her. 

This  1  regret.;  but  another  person  there  was,  at  that 
time,  whom  I  have  since  sought  to  trace,  with  far  deeper 
earnestness,  and  with  far  deeper  sorrow  at  my  failure. 
This  person  was  a  young  woman,  and  one  of  that  un¬ 
happy  class  who  subsist  upon  the  wages  of  prostitution. 
I  feel  no  shame,  nor  have  any  reason  to  feel  it,  in  avow¬ 
ing,  that  I  was  then  on  familiar  and  friendly  terms  with 
many  women  in  that  unfortunate  condition.  The  reader 
needs  neither  smile  at  this  avowal,  nor  frown ;  for,  not 
to  remind  my  classical  readers  of  the  old  Latin  proverb, 
“ Sine  Cerere ,”  &c.,  it  may  well  be  supposed  that  in 
the  existing  state  of  my  purse  my  connection  with 
such  women  could  not  have  been  an  impure  one.  But 
die  truth  is,  that  at  no  time  of  my  life  have  I  beep 
&  person  to  hold  myself  polluted  by  the  touch  or  ap 
|  roach  of  any  creature  that  wore  a  human  shape.  Or 
the  contrary,  from  my  very  earliest  youth,  it  has  been 
my  pride  to  converse  familiarly,  more  Socratico,  with  al1 
human  beings,  —  man,  woman,  and  child,  —  that  chance 
might  fling  in  my  way :  a  practice  which  is  friendly  to 
the  knowledge  of  human  nature,  to  good  feelings,  and 
to  that  frankness  of  address  which  becomes  a  mas 
who  would  be  thought  a  philosopher ;  for  a  philosopher 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER* 


39 


should  not  see  with  the  eyes  of  the  poor  limitary  (  fea¬ 
ture  calling  himself  a  man  of  the  world,  ana  filled 
with  narrow  and  self-regarding  prejudices  of  birth  ami 
education,  but  should  look  upon  himself  as  a  catholic 
{Feature,  and  as  standing  in  an  equal  relation  to  high 
and  low,  to  educated  and  uneducated,  to  the  guilty  and 
the  innocent.  Being  myself,  at  that  time,  of  necessity, 
a  peripatetic,  or  a  walker  of  the  streets,  I  naturajy 
fell  in,  more  frequently,  with  those  female  peripatetics, 
who  are  technically  called  street-walkers.  Many  of 
these  women  had  occasionally  taken  my  part  against 
watchmen  who  wished  to  drive  me  off  the  steps  of 
houses  where  I  was  sitting.  But  one  amongst  them, — 
the  one  on  whose  account  I  have  at  all  introduced  this 
subject,  —  yet  no !  let  me  not  class  thee,  oh  noble- 

minded  Ann - ,  with  that  order  of  women ;  —  let  me 

find,  if  it  be  possible,  some  gentler  name  to  designate 
the  condition  of  her  to  whose  bounty  and  compassion 
ministering  to  my  necessities  when  all  the  world  had 
forsaken  me  —  I  owe  it  that  I  am  at  this  time  alive. 
For  many  weeks,  I  had  walked,  at  nights,  with  this 
poor  friendless  girl,  up  and  down  Oxford-street,  or  had 
rested  with  her  on  steps  and  under  the  shelter  of  porti¬ 
coes.  She  could  not  be  so  old  as  myself:  she  told  me, 
indeed,  that  she  had  not  completed  her  sixteenth  year. 
By  such  questions  as  my  interest  about  her  prompted, 
had  gradually  drawn  forth  her  simple  history.  Hers 
was  a  case  of  ordinary  occurrence  (as  I  nave  since  had 
*eanon  to  think),  and  one  in  which,  if  London  benefi- 
icrice  had  Letter  adapted  its  arrangements  to  meet  it, 
the  power  of  the  iaw  mignt  oftener  oe  interposed  to 
protect  and  to  avenge  But  the  stream  of  London 


10 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


charity  flows  in  a  channel  which,  though  deep  and 
mighty,  is  yet  noiseless  and  under  ground;  —  not  obvi¬ 
ous  or  readily  accessible  to  poor,  houseless  wanderers ; 
and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  outside  air  and  frame¬ 
work  of  London  society  is  harsh,  cruel,  and  repulsive 
In  t.ny  case,  however,  I  saw  that  part  of  her  injuries 
might  easily  have  been  redressed ;  and  I  urged  her 
often  and  earnestly  to  lay  her  complaint  before  a  magis¬ 
trate.  Friendless  as  she  was,  I  assured  her  that  she 
would  meet  with  immediate  attention ;  and  that.  English 
justice,  which  was  no  respecter  of  persons,  would 
speedily  and  amply  avenge  her  on  the  brutal  ruffian 
who  had  plundered  her  little  property.  She  promised 
me  often  that  she  would ;  but  she  delayed  taking  the 
steps  I  pointed  out,  from  time  to  time:  for  she  was  timid 
and  dejected  to  a  degree  which  showed  how  deeply 
sorrow  had  taken  hold  of  her  young  heart;  and  per¬ 
haps  she  thought  justly  that  the  most  upright  judge 
and  the  most  righteous  tribunals  could  do  nothing  to 
repair  her  heaviest  wrongs.  Something,  however, 
would  perhaps  have  been  done ;  tor  it  had  been  settled 
between  us,  at  length,  —  but,  unhappily,  on  the  very  last 
time  but  one  that  I  was  ever  to  see  her,  —  that  in  a  day 
or  two  we  should  speak  on  her  behalf.  This  little  ser¬ 
vice  it  was  destined,  however,  that  I  should  never  real¬ 
ize.  Meantime,  that  which  she  rendered  to  me,  and 
which  was  greater  than  I  could  ever  have  repaid  her 
was  this :  —  One  night,  when  we  were  pacing  slowly 
along  Oxford-street,  and  after  a  day  when  I  had  fell 
unusually  ill  and  faint,  I  requested  her  to  turn  :  ff  witi 
<ne  ’nto  Soho-square.  Thither  we  went;  and  we  satg 
iewn  r.n  the  steps  of  a  house,  which,  to  this  hoti; 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-?  4TER. 


41 


1  never  pass  without  a  pang  of  grief,  and  an  inne~  act 
p '  homage  to  the  spirit  of  that  unhappy  girl,  in  memory 
cf  the  noble  act  which  she  there  performed.  Sud¬ 
denly,  as  we  sate,  I  grew  much  worse.  I  had  oeen 
leaning  my  head  against  her  bosom,  and  ail  at  once  I 
sank  from  her  arms  and  fell  backwards  on  the  steps, 
From  the  sensations  I  then  had,  I  felt  an  inner  convic¬ 
tion  of  the  liveliest  kind,  that  without  some  powerful 
and  reviving  stimulus  I  should  either  have  died  on  the 
spot,  or  should,  at  least,  have  sunk  to  a  point  of  exhaus¬ 
tion  from  which  all  reascent,  under  my  friendless  cir¬ 
cumstances,  would  soon  have  become  hopeless.  Then 
it  was,  at  this  crisis  of  my  fate,  that  my  poor  orphan 
companion,  who  had  herself  met  with  little  but  injuries 
in  this  world,  stretched  out  a  saving  hand  to  me. 
Uttering  a  cry  of  terror,  but  without  a  moment’s  delay 
she  ran  off  into  Oxford-street,  and  in  less  time  than 
could  be  imagined  returned  to  me  with  a  glass  of  port- 
wine  and  spices,  that  acted  upon  my  empty  stomach 
(which  at  that  time  would  have  rejected  all  solid  food) 
with  an  instantaneous  power  of  restoration;  and  for 
this  glass  the  generous  girl,  without  a  murmur,  paid  out 
of  her  own  humble  purse,  at  a  time,  be  it  remembered, 
when  she  had  scarcely  wherewithal  to  purchase  the 
bare  necessaries  of  life,  and  when  she  could  have  no 
reason  to  expect  that  I  should  ever  be  able  to  reimburse 
her.  O,  youthful  benefactress !  how  often,  in  suc¬ 
ceeding  years,  standing  in  solitary  places,  and  thinking 
of  thee  with  grief  of  heart  and  perfect  love,  •— -  how  often 
aave  i  wished  that,  as  ia  ancient  times  the  curse  of  a 
lather  was  believed  to  have  a  supernatural  power,  and 
to  pursue  its  object  with  a  fatal  necessity  of  self-fulfil 


42 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


raent,  —  e\en  so  the  benediction  of  a  heart  rppressed 
with  gratitude  might  have  a  like  prerogative;  might 
have  power  given  to  it  from  above  to  chase,  to  haunt, 
to  waylay,  to  overtake,  to  pursue  thee  into  the  central 
darkness  of  a  London  brothel,  or  (if  it  were  possible) 
into  the  darkness  of  the  grave,  there  to  awaken  tb.ea 
with  an  authentic  message  of  peace  and  forgiveness*  and 
of  final  reconciliation ! 

I  do  not  often  weep ;  for  not  only  do  my  thoughts  on 
subjects  connected  with  the  chief  interests  of  man  dany, 
nay,  hourly,  descend  a  thousand  fathoms  “  too  deep  for 
tears;”  not  only  does  the  sternness  of  my  habits  of 
thought  present  an  antagonism  to  the  feelings  which 
prompt  tears,  —  wanting,  of  necessity,  to  those  who. 
being  protected  usually  by  their  levity  from  any  tend* 
ency  to  meditative  sorrow,  would,  by  that  same  levity, 
be  made  incapable  of  resisting  it  on  any  casual  access  of 
such  feelings;  but  also,  I  believe,  that  all  minds  which 
nave  contemplated  such  objects  as  deeply  as  I  have 
done,  must,  for  their  own  protection  from  utter  despond¬ 
ency,  have  early  encouraged  and  cherished  some  tran¬ 
quillizing  belief  as  to  the  future  balances  and  the 
hieroglyphic  meanings  of  human  sufferings.  On  these 
accounts  I  am  cheerful  to  this  hour;  and,  as  I  have 
said,  I  do  not  often  weep.  Yet  some  feelings,  though 
not  deeper  or  more  passionate,  are  more  tender  than 
others;  and  often,  when  I  walk,  at  this  time,  in  Ouford- 
gtreet,  by  dreamy  lamp-light,  and  hear  those  airs 
played  on  a  barrel-organ  which  years  ago  solaced  me 
And  my  dear  companion  (as  I  must  always  call  her; 

[  shed  tears,  and  muse  with  myself  at  the  mysterious 
dispensation  which  so  suddenly  and  ciitically  sepa 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


43 


feted  us  forever.  How  it  happened,  the  reader  will 
understand  from  what  remains  of  this  introductory 
narration. 

Soon  after  the  period  of  the  last  incident  1  have 
recorded,  I  met,  in  Albemarle-street,  a  gentleman  of 
his  late  Majesty’s  household.  This  gentleman  had 
received  hospitalities,  on  different  occasions,  from  my 
family ;  and  he  challenged  me  upon  the  strength  of 
my  family  likeness,  I  did  not  attempt  any  disguise ; 
I  answered  his  questions  ingenuously,  and,  on  his 
pledging  his  word  -of  honor  that  he  would  not  betray 
me  to  my  guardians,  I  gave  him  an  address  to  my 
friend,  the  attorney.  The  next  day  I  received  from 
him  a  ten-pound  bank  note.  The  letter  enclosing  it  was 
delivered,  with  other  letters  of  business,  to  the  attorney ; 
but,  though  his  look  and  manner  informed  me  that  he 
suspected  its  contents,  he  gave  it  up  to  me  honorably 
and  without  demur. 

This  present,  from  the  particular  service  to  which  it 
was  applied,  leads  me  naturally  to  speak  of  the  purpose 
which  had  allured  me  un  to  London,  and  which  i  had 
been  (to  use  a  forensic  word)  soliciting  from  the  first 
day  of  my  arrival  in  London,  to  that  of  my  final  de¬ 
parture. 

In  so  mighty  a  world  as  London,  it  will  surprise  my 
readers  that  I  should  not  have  found  some  means  of 
staving  off  the  last  extremities  of  penury;  and  it  will 
strike  them  that  two  resources,  at  least,  must  have  been 
Open  to  me,  namely,  either  to  seek  assistance  from  the 
friends  of  mv  family,  or  to  turn  my  youthful  talents 
end  attainments  into  some  channel  of  pecuniary  emoh> 
siem.  As  to  the  first  course,  I  may  observe,  generally 


44 


CONFESSIONS  OF 


that  what  I  dreaded  beyond  all  other  evils  was  the 
chance  of  being  reclaimed  by  my  guardians ;  not 
doubting  that  whatever  power  the  law  gave  them 
would  have  been  enforced  against  me  to  the  utmost  * 
that  is,  to  the  extremity  of  forcibly  restoring  me  to  the 
school  which  I  had  quitted ;  a  restoration  which,  as  is 
would,  in  my  eyes,  have  been  a  dishonor,  even  if  sub® 
mitted  to  voluntarily,  could  not  fail,  when  extorted  from 
me  in  contempt  and  defiance  of  my  own  wishes  and 
efforts,  to  have  been  a  humiliation  worse  to  me  than 
death,  and  which  would  indeed  have  terminated  in 
death.  I  was,  therefore,  shy  enough  of  applying  for 
assistance  even  in  those  quarters  where  1  was  sure  of 
receiving  it,  at  the  risk  of  furnishing  my  guardians  with 
any  clue  for  recovering  me.  But,  as  to  London  in  par¬ 
ticular,  though  doubtless  my  father  had  in  his  lifetime 
trad  many  friends  there,  yet  (as  ten  years  had  passed 
since  his  death;  I  remembered  few  of  them  even  by 
name ;  and  never  having  seen  London  before,  except 
once  for  a  few  hours,  I  knew  not  the  address  of  even 
those  few.  To  this  mode  of  gaining  help,  therefore, 
in  part  the  difficulty,  but  much  more  the  paramount 
fear  which  I  have  mentioned,  habitually  indisposed  me 
In  regard  to  the  other  mode,  I  now  feel  half  inclined  to 
join  my  reader  in  wondering  that  I  should  have  over¬ 
coked  it.  As  a  corrector  of  Greek  proofs  (if  in  no  other 
way),  I  might,  doubtless,  have  gained  enough  for  my 
slender  wants.  Such  an  office  as  this  I  could  have 
discharged  witn  an  exemplary  and  punctual  i  ccuracy 
diat  would  soon  have  gained  me  the  confidence  of  my 
employers.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  even  fty 
such  an  office  as  this,  it  was  necessary  that  I  shoul 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


45 


Erst  of  all  have  an  introduction  to  some  respectable 
publisher;  and  this  I  had  no  means  of  obtaining.  To 
fcay  the  truth,  however,  it  had  never  once  occurred  to 
me  to  think  of  literary  labors  as  a  source  of  profit.  No 
node  sufficiently  speedy  of  obtaining  money  had  ever 
occurred  to  me,  but  that  of  borrowing  it  on  the  strength 
cf  my  future  claims  and  expectations.  This  mode  1 
sought  by  every  avenue  to  compass ;  and  amongst  other 
persons  I  applied  to  a  Jew  15  named  D - 


*  To  this  same  Jew,  by  the  way,  some  eighteen  months  after¬ 
wards,  I  applied  again  on  the  same  business  ;  and,  dating  at  that 
time  from  a  respectable  college,  1  was  fortunate  enough  to  gain  hi# 
serious  attention  to  my  proposals.  My  necessities  had  not  arisen 
from  any  extravagance,  or  youthful  levities  (these,  my  habits  and 
the  nature  of  my  pleasures  raised  me  far  above),  but  simply  frc  m 
the  vindictive  malice  of  my  guardian,  who,  when  he  found  himself 
no  longer  able  to  prevent  me  from  going  to  the  university,  had,  aa 
a  parting  token  of  his  good  nature,  refused  to  sign  an  order  for 
granting  me  a  shilling  beyond  the  allowance  made  to  me  at  school, 
namely,  one  huv  dred  pounds  per  annum.  Upon  this  sum,  it  was,  ia 
my  time,  barely  possible  to  have  lived  in  college  ;  and  not  possible 
to  a  man,  who,  though  above  the  paltry  affectation  of  ostentatious 
rlii  regard  for  money,  and  without  any  expensive  tastes,  confided, 
ae  ertheless,  rather  too  much  in  servants,  and  did  not  delight  in 
th'.  petty  details  of  minute  economy.  I  soon,  therefore,  became 
embarrassed  ;  and,  at  length,  after  a  most  voluminous  negotiation 
//ith  the  Jew  (some  parts  of  which,  if  I  had  leisure  to  rehearse 
ihem,  would  greatly  amuse  my  readers),  I  was  put  in  possessicn 
of  the  sum  I  asked  for,  on  the  “regular”  terms  of  paying  the  Jew 
seventeen  and  a  half  per  cent,  by  way  of  annuity  on  all  the  money 
furnished;  Israel,  on  his  part,  graciously  resuming  no  more  thaj 
about  ninety  guineas  of  the  said  money,  on  account  of  an  attorney’s 
bill  (for  what  services,  to  whom  rendered,  and  when,  — whether  at 
:he  siege  of  Jerusalem,  at  the  building  of  the  Second  Temple,  or 
•n  some  earlier  occasion,  —  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  discover) 
flow  many  perches  this  bid  measured  I  really  forget  ;  but  I  stih 
keej.  it  in  a  cabinet  of  natural  curiosities,  and  son)  i  time  cr  ^tnci 
f  believe  I  shall  present  it  to  the  British  Museum 


(6 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AM 


To  this  Jew,  and  to  other  advertising  money-lenders 
(some  of  whom  were,  I  believe,  also  Jews),  I  had  intro¬ 
duced  myself,  with  an  account  of  my  expectations ; 
which  account,  on  examining  my  father’s  will  at  Doc¬ 
tor’s  Commons,  they  had  ascertained  to  be  correct. 

The  person  there  mentioned  as  the  second  son  of  - - 

was  found  to  have  all  the  claims  (or  more  than  all)  that 
1  had  stated  :  but  one  question  still  remained,  v  hich  the 
faces  of  the  Jews  pretty  significantly  suggested, — -was 
i  that  person  ?  This  doubt  had  never  occurred  to  me 
as  a  possible  one  ;  I  had  rather  feared,  whenever  my 
Jewish  friends  scrutinized  me  keenly,  that  I  might  be 
too  well  known  to  be  that  person,  and  that  some 
scheme  might  be  passing  in  their  minds  for  entrapping 
me  and  selling  me  to  my  guardians.  It  was  strange  to 
me  to  find  my  own  self,  materialiter  considered  (so  I 
expressed  it,  lor  1  doted  on  logical  accuracy  of  dis¬ 
tinctions),  accused,  or  at  least  suspected,  of  counterfeit¬ 
ing  my  own  self,  formaliter  considered.  However,  to 
satisfy  their  scruples,  I  took  the  only  course  in  my 
power.  Whilst  I  was  in  Wales,  I  had  received  various 
letters  from  young  friends:  these  I  produced,  —  for  1 
carried  them  constantly  in  my  pocket,  —  being,  indeed, 
by  this  time,  almost  me  only  relics  of  my  personal  in¬ 
cumbrances  (excepting  the  clothes  I  wore),  which  I  had 
not  in  one  way  or  other  disposed  of.  Most  of  these  let¬ 
ters  were  from  the  Earl  of - ,16  who  was,  at  that  time, 

my  chief  (or  rather  only)  confidential  friend.  These 
etters  were  dated  from  Eton.  I  had  also  some  from 

t.ie  Marquis  of - , 17  his  father,  who,  though  absorbed 

'n  agricultural  pursuits,  ymt  having  been  an  Etonian 
-linself,  and  as  good  a  scholar  as  a  nobleman  n3eds 
ID  be  still  r©T;ned  an  affection  fur  dassical  stu  lie* 


ENGLISH  Orn7M-EAT.L.It. 


47 


smd  for  youthful  scholars.  He  had,  accordingly,  from 
the  time  that  I  was  fifteen,  corresponded  with  me  • 
sometimes  upon  the  great  improvements  which  he  had 

made,  or  was  meditating,  in  the  counties  of  M - and 

SI—  — -,18  since  I  had  been  there  ;  sometimes  upon  thf 
merits  of  a  Latin  poet ;  at  other  times,  suggesting  sub¬ 
jects  to  me  on  which  he  wished  me  to  write  verses. 

On  reading  the  letters,  one  of  my  Jewish  friends 
agreed  to  furnish  two  or  three  hundred  pounds  on  my 
personal  security,  provided  I  could  persuade  the  young 
earl,  —  who  was,  by  the  way,  not  older  than  myself,  —  to 
guarantee  the  payment  on  our  coming  of  age :  the 
Jew’s  final  object  being,  as  I  now  suppose,  not  the 
tnfiing  profit  he  could  expect  to  make  by  me,  but  the 
prospect  of  establishing  a  connection  with  my  noble 
fiiend,  whose  immense  expectations  were  well  known 
to  him.  In  pursuance  of  this  proposal  on  the  part  of  the 
Jew,  about  eight  or  nine  days  after  I  had  received  the 
ten  pounds,  I  prepared  to  go  down  to  Eton.  Nearly  three 
pounds  of  the  money  I  had  given  to  my  money-lending 
friend,  on  his  alleging  that  the  stamps  must  be  bought,  m 
order  that  the  writings  might  be  prepared  whilst  I  was 
away  from  London.  I  thought  in  my  heart  that  he  was 
lying;  but  I  did  not  wish  to  give  him  any  excuse  foi 
charging  his  own  delays  upon  me.  A  smaller  sum  I  had 
given  to  my  friend  the  attorney  (who  was  connected  with 
the  money-lenders  as  their  lawryer),  to  which,  indeed, 
He  was  entitled  for  his  unfurnished  lodgings.  About 
fifteen  shillings  I  had  employed  in  reestablishing 
(though  in  a  very  humble  way)  my  dress.  Of  tha  re¬ 
mainder,  I  gave  one-quarter  to  Ann,  meaning,  on  my 
return,  to  have  divided  w*th  her  whatever  might  remain 


48 


CONFESSIONS  OF 


These  arrangements  made,  soon  after  six  o’clock,  oa 
a  daik  winter  evening,  I  set  off,  accompanied  by  Ann 
towards  Piccadilly;  for  it  was  my  intention  to  go  down 
as  far  as  Salt  Kill  on  the  Bath  or  Bristol  mail.  Our 
course  lay  through  a  part  of  the  town  which  has  now 
all  disappeared,  so  that  I  can  no  longer  retrace  its 
ancient  boundaries :  Swallow-street,  I  think  it  was 
called.  Having  time  enough  before  us,  however,  we 
bore  away  to  the  left,  until  we  came  into  Golden- 
square  :  there,  near  the  corner  of  Sherrard-street,  we 
sat  down,  not  wishing  to  part  in  the  tumult  and  blaze 
of  Piccadilly.  I  had  told  her  of  my  plans  some  time 
before ;  and  now  I  assured  her  again  that  she  should 
share  in  my  good  fortune,  if  I  met  with  any  ;  and  that 
I  would  never  forsake  her,  as  soon  as  I  had  power  to 
protect  her.  This  I  fully  intended,  as  much  from  incli¬ 
nation  as  from  a  sense  of  duty ;  for,  setting  aside  grati¬ 
tude,  which,  in  any  case,  must  have  made  me  her  debtor 
for  life,  I  loved  her  as  affectionately  as  if  she  had  been 
my  sister ;  and  at  this  moment  with  seven-fold  tender¬ 
ness,  from  pity  at  witnessing  her  extreme  dejection.  I 
had,  apparently,  most  reason  for  dej(  ’-tion,  because  I 
was  leaving  the  saviour  of  my  life ;  yt':  I,  considering 
the  shock  my  health  had  received,  was  cheerful  and 
full  of  hope.  She,  on  the  contrary,  who  wa3  parting 
with  one  who  had  had  little  means  of  serving  her,  ex¬ 
cept  by  kindness  and  brotherly  treatment,  was  overcome 
oy  sorrow,  so  that,  when  I  kissed  her  at  our  final 
farewell,  she  put  her  arms  about  my  neck,  and  wept, 
without  speaking  a  word.  I  hoped  to  return  in  a  week 
hi  furthest,  and  I  agreed  with  her  that  on  the  fifth  nigh 
from  that,  and  evc  y  night  afterwards,  she  should  wa \l 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


49 


for  me,  at  six  o’clock,  near  the  bottom  of  Great  Titch* 
field-street,  which  had  been  our  customary  haven,  as  it 
were,  of  rendezvous,  to  prevent  our  missing  each  other 
in  the  great  Mediterranean  of  Oxford-street.  This, 
and  other  measures  of  precaution,  I  took :  one,  only,  I 
forgot.  She  had  either  never  told  me,  or  (as  a  matter 
of  no  great  interest)  I  had  forgotten,  her  surname.  It 
is  a  general  practice,  indeed,  with  girls  of  humble  rank 
in  her  unhappy  condition,  not  (as  novel-reading  women 
of  higher  pretensions)  to  style  themselves  Miss  Doug¬ 
las s,  Miss  Montague ,  &c.,  but  simply  by  their  Chris¬ 
tian  names,  Mary ,  Jane,  Frances ,  &c.  Her  surname, 
as  the  surest  means  of  tracing  her,  1  ought  now  to  have 
inquired ;  but  the  truth  is,  having  no  reason  to  think 
that  our  meeting  could,  in  consequence  of  a  short  inter¬ 
ruption,  be  more  difficult  or  uncertain  than  it  had 
been  for  so  many  weeks,  I  had  scarcely  for  a  moment 
adverted  to  it  as  necessary,  or  placed  it  amongst  my 
memoranda  against  this  parting  interview;  and  my 
final  anxieties  being  spent  in  comforting  her  with  hopes, 
and  in  pressing  upon  her  the  necessity  of  getting  some 
medicine  for  a  violent  cough  and  hoarseness  with  which 
she  was  troubled,  I  wholly  forgot  it  until  it  was  too  late 
to  recall  her. 

It  was  past  eight  o’clock  when  I  reached  the  Glouces¬ 
ter  Coffee-House,  and  the  Bristol  Mail  being  on  the 
point  of  going  off,  I  mounted  on  the  outside.  The  fine 
fluent  motion  *  of  this  mail  soon  laid  r  e  asleep.  It  is 
wmewhat  remarkable  that  the  first  easy  or  refreshing 

*  The  Bristol  Mail  is  the  best  appo»nted  in  the  kingdom,  oaring 
to  the  double  advantage  of  an  unosually  gor  1  road,  and  of  an  extr* 
Vura  expenses  subscribed  y  the  Bristol  merchant;!. 

4 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


St) 

sleep  which  I  hau  enjoyed  for  some  months  wt.s  on  the 
outside  of  a  mail-coach,  —  a  bed  which,  at  this  day, 
find  rather  an  uneasy  one.  Connected  with  this  sleep 
was  a  little  incident  which  served,  as  hundreds  of  others 
did  at  that  time,  to  convince  me  how  easily  a  man 
who  has  never  been  in  any  great  distress,  may  pass 
through  life  without  knowing,  in  his  own  person,  at 
least,  anything  of  the  possible  goodness  of  the  human 
heart,  or,  as  I  must  add  with  a  sigh,  of  its  possible  vile* 
ness.  So  thick  a  curtain  of  manners  is  drawn  over  tho 
features  and  expression  of  men’s  natures,  that,  to  the 
ordinary  observer,  the  two  extremities,  and  the  infinite 
field  of  varieties  which  lie  between  them,  are  all  con¬ 
founded,  —  the  vast  and  multitudinous  compass  of  their 
several  harmonies  reduced  to  the  meagre  outline  of 
differences  expressed  in  the  gamut  or  alphabet  of  ele¬ 
mentary  sounds.  The  case  was  this :  for  the  first  four 
or  five  miles  from  London,  I  annoyed  my  fellow-pas' 
senger  on  the  roof,  by  occasionally  falling  against  him 
when  the  coach  gave  a  lurch  to  his  side ;  and,  indeed, 
if  the  road  had  been  less  smooth  and  level  than  it  is,  I 
should  have  fallen  off,  from  weakness.  Of  this  annoy- 
uice  he  complained  heavily,  as,  perhaps,  in  the  same 
circumstances,  most  people  would.  He  expressed  his 
complaint,  however,  more  morosely  than  the  occasion 
r.eemed  to  warrant ;  and  if  I  had  parted  with  him  at 
that  moment,  I  should  have  thought  of  him  (if  I  had 
considered  it  worth  while  to  think  of  him  at  all)  as  a 
**urly  and  almost  brutal  fellow.  However,  I  was  con» 
Kcious  that  I  had  given  him  some  cause  for  complain* 
and,  therefore,  I  apologized  to  him,  and  assured  him 
urould  do  what  I  could  to  avoid  falling  asleep  for  th 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


51 


uture  &ud  at  the  same  time,  in  as  few  words  as  po3« 
Bible,  I  explained  to  him  that  I  was  ill,  and  in  a  weak 
Btate  from  long  suffering,  and  that  I  could  not  afford,  at 
that  time,  to  take  an  inside  place.  The  man’s  manner 
changed,  upon  hearing  this  explanation,  in  an  instant ; 
and  when  I  next  woke  for  a  minute,  from  the  noise  and 
lights  of  Hounslow  (for,  in  spite  of  my  wishes  and 
efforts,  I  had  fallen  asleep  again  within  two  minutes 
from  the  time  I  had  spoken  to  him),  I  found  that  he  had 
put  his  arm  round  me  to  protect  me  from  falling  off ; 
and  for  the  rest  of  my  journey  he  behaved  to  me  with 
[he  gentleness  of  a  woman,  so  that,  at  length,  I  almost 
lay  in  his  arms ;  and  this  was  the  more  kind,  as  he 
could  not  have  known  that  I  was  not  going  the  whole 
way  to  Bath  or  Bristol.  Unfortunately,  indeed,  I  did 
go  rather  further  than  I  intended ;  for  so  genial  and 
refreshing  was  my  sleep,  that  the  next  time,  after  leav¬ 
ing  Hounslow,  that  I  fully  awoke,  was  upon  the  sudden  * 
pulling  up  of  the  mail  (possibly  at  a  post-office),  and, 
on  inquiry,  I  found  that  we  had  reached  Maidenhead, 
six  or  seven  miles,  1  think,  ahead  of  Salt  Hill.  Here  I 
flighted ;  and  for  the  half-minute  that  the  mail  stopped, 

[  was  entreated  by  my  friendly  companion  (who,  from 
he  transient  glimpse  I  had  of  him  in  Piccadilly, 
teemed  to  me  to  be  a  gentleman’s  butler,  or  person 
of  that  rank),  to  go  to  bed  without  delay.  This  I  prom¬ 
ised.  though  with  no  intention  of  doing  so;  and,  in  fact, 
immediately  set  forward,  or,  rather,  backward,  on 
foot.  It  must  then  have  been  nearly  midnight ;  but  sc 
“lowly  did  1  creep  along,  that  I  heard  a  clock  in  a 
tof  Vige  strike  four  before  ’  turned  down  the  lane  from 
Skugh  to  Eton.  T1  e  air  and  the  sleep  had  boife 


52 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


refreshed  me;  b.n  I  was  weary,  nevertheless.  I  remem 
ber  a  thought  (oovious  enough,  and  which  has  been 
prettily  expressed  by  a  Roman  poet)  which  gave  me 
some  consolation,  at  that  moment,  under  my  poverty 
There  had  been,  some  time  before,  a  murder  committed 
on  or  near  Hounslow  Heath.19  I  think  I  cannot  be  mis* 
taken  when  I  say  that  the  name  of  the  murdered  person 
was  Steele ,  and  that  he  was  the  owner  of  a  lavender 
plantation  in  that  neighborhood.  Every  step  of  my 
progress  was  bringing  me  nearer  to  the  heath ;  and  it 
naturally  occurred  to  me  that  I  and  the  accursed  mun 
derer,  if  he  were  that  night  abroad,  might,  at  every 
mstant,  be  unconsciously  approaching  each  other 
through  the  darkness;  in  which  case,  said  I,  supposing 
I  —  instead  of  being  (as,  indeed,  I  am,  little  better  than 
an  outcast, 

Lord  of  my  learning,  and  no  land  beside  — 

were,  like  my  friend  Lord  - ,20  heir,  by  general  re¬ 

pute,  to  £  70,000  per  annum,  what  a  panic  should  I  be 
under,  at  this  moment,  about  my  throat !  Indeed,  it 

was  not  likely  that  Lord  -  should  ever  be  in  my 

ituation ;  but,  nevertheless,  the  spirit  of  the  remark 
remains  true,  that  vast  power  and  possessions  make  a 
•nan  shamefully  afraid  of  dying;  and  I  am  convinced  ■ 
that  many  of  the  most  intrepid  adventurers,  who,  by 
brtunateiy  being  poor,  enjoy  the  full  use  of  their  natural 
courage,  would,  if,  at  the  very  instant  of  going  into 
action,  news  were  brought  to  them  that  they  had  unex* 
'^ectediy  succeeded  to  an  estate  in  England  of  £50,004 
&  year,  feel  their  dislike  to  bullets  considerably  sharp 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-E-ATEH. 


53 

sued,*  and  their  efforts  at  perfect  equanimity  and  sdf» 
possession  proportionally  difficult.  So  tree  it  is,  in  the 
.itnguage  of  a  wise  man,  wnose  own  experience  had 
made  him  acquainted  with  both  fortunes,  that  riches  are 
tetter  fitted 

To  slacken  virtue,  and  abate  her  edgr, 

Than  tempt  her  to  do  augnt  may  merit  praise. 

Paradise  Regained. 

I  dally  with  my  subject,  because,  to  myself,  the 
remembrance  of  these  times  is  profoundly  interesting. 
But  my  reader  shall  not  have  any  further  cause  to 
complain ;  for  I  now  hasten  to  its  close.  In  the  road 
between  Slough  and  Eton  I  fell  asleep;  and,  just  as 
the  morning  began  to  dawn,  I  was  awakened  by  the 
voice  of  a  man  standing  over  me  and  surveying  me 
I  know  not  what  he  was.  He  was  an  ill-looking  fellow, 
but  not,  therefore,  of  necessity,  an  ill-meaning  fellow; 
or,  if  he  were,  I  suppose  he  thought  that  no  person 
sleeping  out-of-doors  in  winter  could  be  worth  robbing. 
In  which  conclusion,  however,  as  it  regarded  myself,  I 
beg  to  assure  him,  if  he  should  be  among  my  readers, 
that  he  was  mistaken.  After  a  slight  remark,  he  passeQ 
on.  I  was  not  sorry  at  his  disturbance,  as  it  enabled  me 
to  pass  through  Eton  before  people  were  generally  up. 
The  night  had  been  heavy  and  lowering,  but  towards 
.he  morning  it  had  changed  to  a  slight  frost,  and  the 
ground  and  the  trees  were  now  covered  with  rime.  . 

*  It  will  be  objected  that  many  men,  of  tne  highest  rank  and 
Wealth,  have,  in  our  own  day,  as  well  is  throughout  our  history, 
oeen  e^^orgst  the  foremost  in  courting  danger  in  battle.  True  , 
cot  this  is  not  the  case  supposed.  Long  familiaiity  with  power 
laa,  to  them,  deadened  its  effect  and  its  attractions. 


6X 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


flipped  through  Eton  unobserved;  washed  myself,  and 
as  far  as  possible,  adjusted  my  dress,  at  a  little  public 
house  in  Windsor;  and,  about  eight  o’clock,  went  dowt 
towards  Pole’s.  On  my  road  I  met  some  junior  boys 
of  whom  I  made  inquiries.  An  Etonian  is  always  a 
gentleman,  and,  in  spite  or  my  shabby  habiliments,  they 

answered  me  civilly.  My  friend,  Lord - ,  was  gone 

to  the  University  of - .2l  “  Ibi  omnis  effusus  labor!” 

I  had,  however,  other  friends  at  Eton  ;  but  it  is  not 
to  all  who  wear  that  name  in  prosperity  that  a  man  i3 
willing  to  present  himself  in  distress.  On  recollecting 

myself,  however,  I  asked  for  the  Earl  of  D - ,22  to 

whom  (though  my  acquaintance  with  him  was  not  so 
intimate  as  with  some  others)  1  should  not  have  shrunk 
from  presenting  myself  under  any  circumstances.  He 
was  still  at  Eton,  though,  I  believe,  on  the  wing  for 
Cambridge.  I  called,  was  received  kindly,  and  asked  to 
breakfast. 

Here  let  me  stop,  for  a  moment,  to  check  my  reader 
from  any  erroneous  conclusions.  Because  I  have  had 
occasion  incidentally  to  speak  of  various  patrician 
friends,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  I  have  myself  any 
pretensions  to  rank  or  high  blood.  I  thank  God  that  I 
have  not.  I  am  the  son  of  a  plain  English  merchant, 
esteemed,  during  his  life,  for  his  great  integrity,  and 
strongly  attached  to  literary  pursuits  (indeed,  he  was 
himself,  anonymously,  an  author).  If  he  had  lived,  it 
79ns  expected  that  he  would  have  been  very  rich ;  but* 
glying  prematurely,  he  left  no  more  than  about  £30,000 
amongst  seven  different  claimants.  My  mother  I  may 
mention  with  honor,  as  still  more  highly  gifted  ;  for 
fjough  unpretending  to  the  name  and  honors  of  a  list 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


vary  woman,  1  shall  presume  to  call  her  (what  many 
literary  women  are  not)  an  intellectual  woman  ;  and  J 
believe  that  if  ever  her  letters  should  be  collected  and 
published,  they  wTould  be  thought  generally  to  exhibit 
as  much  strong  and  masculine  sense,  delivered  in  as 
pure  “  mother  English,”  racy  and  fresh  with  idiomatic 
graces,  as  any  in  our  language,  —  hardly  excepting  those 
of  Lady  M.  W.  Montague.  These  are  my  honors  of 
descent;  I  have  no  others;  and  I  have  thanked  GoU 
sincere.y  that  I  have  not,  because,  in  my  judgment,  a 
station  which  raises  a  man  too  eminently  above  the 
level  of  his  fellow-creatures,  is  not  the  most  favorable 
to  moral  or  to  intellectual  qualities. 

Lord  D - placed  before  me  a  most  magnificent 

oreakfast.  It  was  really  so ;  but  in  my  eyes  it  seemed 
trebly  magnificent,  from  being  the  first  regular  meal,  the 
first  “good  man’s  table,”  that  I  had  sat  down  to  for  months. 
Strange  to  say,  however,  I  could  scarcely  eat  anything. 
On  the  day  when  1  first  received  my  ten-pound  bank¬ 
note,  I  had  gone  to  a  baker's  shop  and  bought  a  couple 
jf  rolls;  this  very  shop  I  had  two  months  or  six  weeks 
uefore  surveyed  with  an  eagerness  of  desire  which  it 
was  almost  humiliating  to  me  to  recollect.  I  remem¬ 
bered  the  story  about  Otway;  and  feared  that  there 
might  be  danger  in  eating  too  rapidly.  But  I  had  no 
need  for  alarm;  my  appetite  was  quite  sunk,  and  I 
jecame  sick  before  I  had  eaten  half  of  what  .  had 
nought.  This  effect,  from  eating  what  approached  to  a 
meal,  I  continued  to  feel  for  weeks ;  or,  when  I  did  not 
experience  any  nausea  part  cr  what  I  ate  was  rejected, 
sometimes  with  acidity,  sometimes  immediately  and 
without  any  acidity.  On  the  present  occasion,  at  Loza 


56 


CONFESSIONS  OF  aN 


D — — ' ’s  table,  I  found  myseff  not  at  all  oeiter  than 
flsual ;  and,  in  the  midst  of  luxuries,  I  had  no  appetite 
I  had,  however,  unfortunately,  at  all  times  a  craving 
for  wine ;  I  explained  my  situation,  therefore,  to  Lora 
D - ,  and  gave  him  a  short  account  of  my  late  suf¬ 

ferings,  at  which  he  expressed  great  compassion,  and 
called  for  wine.  This  gave  me  a  momentary  relief 
and  pleasure ;  and  on  all  occasions,  when  I  had  an 
opportunity,  I  never  failed  to  drink  wine,  which  I 
worshipped  then  as  I  have  since  worshipped  opium. 
1  am  convinced,  however,  that  this  indulgence  in  wine 
continued  to  strengthen  my  malady,  for  the  tone  of 
my  stomach  was  apparently  quite  sunk ;  but,  by  a  better 
regimen,  it  might  sooner,  and,  perhaps,  effectually,  have 
been  revived.  I  hope  that  it  was  not  from  this  love  of 
wine  that  I  lingered  in  the  neighborhood  of  my  Eton 
friends ;  I  persuaded  myself  then  that  it  was  from  re¬ 
luctance  to  ask  of  Lord  D - ,  on  whom  I  was  con¬ 

scious  I  had  not  sufficient  claims,  the  particular  service 
inquest  of  which  I  had  come  to  Effin.  I  was,  however, 
unwilling  to  lose  my  journey,  and,  —  I  asked  it.  Lord 

D - ,  whose  good  nature  was  unbounded,  and  which, 

in  regard  to  myself,  had  been  measured  rather  by  his 
mmpassion  perhaps  for  my  condition,  and  his  knowl¬ 
edge  of  my  intimacy  with  some  of  his  relatives,  than 
by  an  over-rigorous  inquiry  into  the  extent  of  my  own 
direct  claims,  faltered,  nevertheless,  at  this  request.  He 
acknowledged  that  he  did  not  like  to  have  any  dealings 
with  money-lenders,  and  feared  lest  such  a  transaction 
might  come  to  the  ears  of  his  connections.  Moreover 
ae  doubted  whether  his  signature,  whose  expectations 
srere  so  much  more  bounded  than  those  of  — - — .  won't 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


bl 


avail  with  my  uncnristian  friends.  However,  he  did 
not  wish,  as  it  seemed,  to  mortify  me  by  an  absolute 
refusal ;  for,  after  a  dttle  consideration,  he  promised, 
under  certain  conditions,  which,  he  pointed  out,  to  give 

nis  security.  Lord  D - was  at  this  time  not  eighteen 

years  of  age ;  but  I  have  often  doubted,  on  recollecting, 
since,  the  good  sense  and  prudence  which  on  this  occa¬ 
sion  he  mingled  with  so  much  urbanity  of  manner  (an 
urbanity  which  in  him  wore  the  grace  of  youthful  sin¬ 
cerity),  whether  any  statesman  —  the  oldest  and  the 
most  accomplished  in  diplomacy  —  could  have  ac¬ 
quitted  himself  better  under  the  same  circumstances. 
Most  people,  indeed,  cannot  be  addressed  on  such  a 
ousiness,  without  surveying  you  with  looks  as  austere 
and  unpropitious  as  those  of  a  Saracen’s  head. 

Recomforted  by  this  promise,  which  was  not  quite 
equal  to  the  best,  but  far  above  the  worst,  that  I  had 
pictured  to  myself  as  possible,  I  returned  in  a  Windsor 
coach  to  London  three  days  after  I  had  quitted  it.  And 
now  I  come  to  the  end  of  my  story.  The  Jews  did  not 

approve  of  Lord  D - ’s  terms ;  whether  they  would 

in  the  end  have  acceded  to  them,  and  were  only  seek¬ 
ing  time  for  making  due  inquiries,  I  know  not;  but 
many  delays  were  made, — time  passed  on,  —  the  small 
fragment  of  my  bank-note  had  just  melted  away,  and 
before  any  conclusion  could  have  been  put  to  the  busi¬ 
ness,  I  must  have  relapsed  into  my  former  state  of 
wretchedness.  Suddenly,  however  at  this  crisis,  an 
opening  was  made,  almost  by  accident,  Jor  reconcilia¬ 
tion  with  my  f'iends.23  1  quitted  London  in  haste,  fer  a 
remote  part  of  England ;  after  some  time,  I  proceeded 
»o  the  university;  and  it  was  not  until  many  monlDs 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


had  passed  away,  that  I  had  it  m  my  power  again  ta 
revisit  the  ground  which  had  become  so  interesting  to 
me,  and  to  this  day  remains  so,  as  the  chief  scene  of 
my  youthful  sufferings. 

Meantime,  what  had  become  of  poor  Ann  ?  For  her 
I  have  reserved  my  concluding  words;  according  to  our 
agreement,  I  sought  her  daily,  and  waited  for  her  every 
night,  so  long  as  I  stayed  in  London,  at  the  corner  of 
Titchfield-street.  I  inquired  for  her  of  every  one  who 
was  likely  to  know  her;  and  during  the  last  hours  of 
my  stay  in  London,  I  put  into  activity  every  means  of 
tracing  her  that  my  knowledge  of  London  suggested, 
and  the  limited  extent  of  my  power  made  possible. 
The  street  where  she  had  lodged  I  knew,  but  not  the 
house ;  and  I  remembered,  at  last,  some  account  which 
she  had  given  of  ill  treatment  from  her  landlord,  which 
made  it  probable  that  she  had  quitted  those  lodgings 
before  we  parted.  She  had  few  acquaintances;  most 
people,  besides,  thought  that  the  earnestness  of  my 
inquiries  arose  from  motives  which  moved  their  laugh¬ 
ter  or  their  slight  regard;  and  others,  thinking  that  1 
was  in  chase  of  a  girl  who  had  robbed  me  of  some 
trifles,  were  naturally  and  excusably  indisposed  to  give 
me  any  clue  to  her,  if,  indeed,  they  had  any  to  give. 
Finally,  as  my  despairing  resource,  on  the  day  I  left 
London,  I  put  into  the  hands  of  the  only  person  who  (1 
was  sure)  must  know  Ann  by  sight,  from  having  been 

n  company  with  us  once  or  twice,  an  address  to - - 

in  — — -shire,  at  that  time  the  residence  of  my  family. 
But,  to  this  hour,  I  have  never  heard  a  syllable  about 
her.  This,  amongst  such  troubles  as  most  men  mee* 
with  in  this  life,  has  been  my  heaviest  affliction.  1. 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


59 


fhe  lived,  doubtless  we  must  have  been  sometimes  in 
search  of  each  other,  at  the  very  same  moment,  through 
the  mighty  labyrinths  of  London ;  perhaps  even  within 
r  few  feet  of  each  other,  —  a  barrier  no  wider,  in  a  Lorn* 
don  street,  often  amounting  in  the  end  to  a  separation 
for  eternity!  During  some  years,  1  hoped  that  she  did 
live ;  and  I  suppose  that,  in  the  literal  and  unrhetorical 
use  of  the  word  myriad ,  I  may  say,  that  on  my  different 
visits  to  London,  I  have  looked  into  many,  many  myriads 
of  female  faces,  in  the  hope  of  meeting  her.  I  should 
know  her  again  amongst  a  thousand,  if  I  saw  her  for  a 
moment ;  for,  though  not  handsome,  she  had  a  sweet 
expression  of  countenance,  and  a  peculiar  and  graceful 
carriage  of  the  head.  I  sought  her,  I  have  said,  in 
hope.  So  it  was  for  years ;  but  now  I  should  fear  to 
see  her;  and  her  cough,  which  grieved  me  when  I 
parted  with  her,  is  now  my  consolation.  I  now  wish  ter 
see  her  no  longer,  but  think  of  her,  more  gladly,  as  one 
long  since  laid  in  the  grave ;  —  in  the  grave,  I  would 
hope,  of  a  Magdalen ;  —  taken  away,  before  injuries 
and  cruelty  had  blotted  out  and  transfigured  her  ingen¬ 
uous  nature,  or  the  brutalities  of  ruffians  had  completed 
the  ruin  they  had  begun. 

So  then,  Oxford-street,  stony-hearted  stepmother, 
thou  that  listenest  to  the  sighs  of  orphans,  and  drinkesi 
the  tears  of  children,  at  length  I  was  dismissed  from 
thee!  —  the  time  was  come,  at  last,  that  I  no  more  should 
pace  in  anguish  thy  never-ending  terraces ;  no  more 
should  dream,  and  wak^  in  captivity  to  the  pangs  oi 
hunger.  Successors,  too  many  to  myself  and  Ann, 
Have,  doubtless,  since  then  trodden  in  our  footsteps, 
tiheritors  of  our  calamities  other  orphans  than  Ann 


CONFESSIONS  3F  AN 


have  sighed ,  tears  have  been  shed  by  other  children* 
md  thou,  Oxford-street,  hast  since  echoed  to  the  groans 
of  innumerable  hearts.  For  myself,  however,  the  storm 
which  [  had  outlived  seemed  to  have  been  the  pledge 
of  a  long  fair  weather;  the  premature  sufferings  which 
I  had  paid  down,  to  have  been  accepted  as  a  ransom  fol 
many  years  to  come,  as  a  price  of  long  immunity  from 
sorrow ;  and  if  again  I  walked  in  London,  a  solitary 
and  contemplative  man  (as  oftentimes  I  did),  I  walked 
for  the  most  part  in  serenity  and  peace  of  mind.  And, 
although  it  is  true  that  the  calamities  of  my  novitiate  m 
London  had  struck  root  so  deeply  in  my  bodily  con 
stitution  that  afterwards  they  shot  up  and  flourished 
afresh,  and  grew  into  a  noxious  umbrage  that  has 
overshadowed  and  darkened  my  latter  years,  yet  these 
second  assaults  of  suffering  were  met  with  a  fortitude 
more  confirmed,  with  the  resources  of  a  maturer  intel¬ 
lect,  and  with  alleviations  from  sympathizing  affection, 
how  deep  and  tender! 

Thus,  however,  with  whatsoever  alleviations,  years 
that  were  far  asunder  were  bound  together  by  subtile 
links  of  suffering  derived  from  a  common  root.  And 
herein  I  notice  an  instance  of  the  short-sightedness  of 
human  desires,  —  that  oftentimes,  on  moonlight  nighty 
during  my  first  mournful  abode  in  London,  my  consola 
tion  was  (if  such  it  could  be  thought)  to  gaze  from  Ox¬ 
ford-street  up  every  avenue  in  succession  which  pierces 
through  the  heart  of  Mary-le-bone  to  the  fields  and  the 
woods;  for  that,  said  I,  travelling  with  my  eyes  up  the 
ong  vistas  which  lay  part  in  light  and  part  in  shade. 

-that  is  the  road  to  the  north,  and,  therefore,  to - 

■  i.d  if  I  had  the  wings  of  a  dove,  that  way  1  would  fly 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER 


6- 


for  comfort.”  Thus  I  said,  and  thus  I  wished  in  my 
blindness ;  yet,  even  in  that  very  northern  region  it  was, 
in  that  very  valley,  nay,  in  that  very  house  to  which 
my  erroneous  wishes  pointed,  that  this  second  birth  of 
my  sufferings  began,  and  that  they  again  threatened  to 
besiege  the  citadel  of  life  and  hope.  There  it  was  that 
for  years  I  was  persecuted  by  visions  as  ugly,  and  as 
ghastly  phantoms,  as  ever  haunted  the  couch  of  an 
Orestes  ;  and  in  this  unhappier  than  he, —  that  sleep, 
which  comes  to  all  as  a  respite  and  a  restoration,  and 
to  him  especially  as  a  blessed  balm  for  his  wounded 
heart  and  his  haunted  brain,  visited  me  as  my  bitterest 
scourge.  Thus  blind  was  I  in  my  desires ;  yet,  if  a 
veil  interposes  between  the  dim-sightedness  of  man 
and  his  future  calamities,  the  same  vale  hides  from 
him  their  alleviations ;  and  a  grief  which  had  not  been 
feared  is  met  by  consolations  which  had  not  been 
hoped.  I,  therefore,  who  participated,  as  it  were,  in 
the  troubles  of  Orestes  (excepting  only  in  his  agitated 
conscience),  participated  no  less  in  all  his  supports; 
my  Eumenides,  like  his,  were  at  my  bed-feet,  and 
stared  in  upon  me  through  the  curtains ;  but,  watching 
by  my  pillow,  or  defrauding  herself  of  sleep  to  bear  me 
company  through  the  heavy  watches  of  the  night,  sat 
my  Electra  ;  for  thou,  beloved  M.,  ^ear  companion  of 
my  later  years,  thou  wast  my  Electra !  and  neither  in 
nobility  of  mind  nor  in  long-suffering  affection  wouldsi 
permit  that  a  Grecian  sister  should  excel  an  English 
wife.  For  thou  thoughtest  not  much  to  stoop  to  humble 
offices  of  kindness,  and  to  sewile  ministrations  of  ten- 
<lerest  affection ;  to  wipe  away  for  years  the  unwhole¬ 
some  de  vs  upon  the  forehead,  or  to  refresn  the  lip* 


52 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


when  parched  and  baked  with  fever ,  nor  even  when 
thy  own  peaceful  slumbers  had  by  long  sympathy  be* 
come  infected  with  the  spectacle  of  my  dread  contest 
with  phantoms  and  shadowy  enemies,  that  oftentimes 
bade  me  “sleep  no  more!”  —  not  even  then  didst 
thou  utter  a  complaint  or  any  murmur,  nor  withdraw 
thy  angelic  smiles,  nor  shrink  from  thy  service  of  love, 
mare  than  Electra  did  of  old.  For  she,  too,  though  she 
was  a  Grecian  woman,  and  the  daughter  of  the  king* 
of  men,  yet  wept  sometimes,  and  hid  her  face  t  in  her 
robe. 

But  these  troubles  are  past,  and  thou  wilt  read  these 
records  of  a  period  so  dolorous  to  us  both  as  the 
legend  of  some  hideous  dream  that  can  return  no  more. 
Meantime  I  am  again  in  London ;  and  again  I  pace  the 
terraces  of  Oxford-street  by  night ;  and  oftentimes,  — 
when  I  am  oppressed  by  anxieties  that  demand  all  my 
philosophy  and  the  comfort  of  thy  presence  to  support, 
and  yet  remember  that  I  am  separated  from  thee  by 
three  hundred  miles,  and  the  length  of  three  dreary 
months,  —  I  look  up  the  streets  that  run  northward 
from  Oxford-street,  upon  moonlight  nights,  and  recol¬ 
lect  my  youthful  ejaculation  of  anguish;  and  rernem- 

*  Agamemnon. 

t  Ouua  -det$  tig  TrenXov.  The  scholar  will  know  that  through¬ 
out  this  passage  I  refer  to  the  eany  scenes  of  the  Orestes,  —  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  exhibitions  of  the  domestic  affections  which 
even  the  dramas  of  Euripides  can  furnish.  To  the  English  reader, 
It  may  be  necessary  to  say,  that  the  situation  at  the  opening  of  the 
drama  is  that  of  a  brother  attended  only  by  his  sister  during  th* 
demoniacal  possession  of  a  suffering  conscience  (or,  in  the  mythoi 
ygy  of  the  play,  haunted  by  the  furies),  and  in  circumstances  o. 
.mrnediate  danger  from  laemies,  and  of  desertmw  or  cold  'egan* 
tfora  nominal  friends. 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


61 


Bering  that  thou  art  sitting  alone  in  that  same  vaiiey 
and  mistress  of  that  very  house  to  which  my  heart 
turned  in  its  blindness  nineteen  years  ago,  I  think  that, 
though  blind  indeed,  and  scattered  to  the  winds  of  late, 
the  promptings  of  my  heart  may  yet  have  had  refer¬ 
ence  to  a  remoter  time,  and  may  be  justified  if  read 
in  another  meaning;  and  if  I  could  allow  myself  to 
descend  again  to  the  impotent  wishes  of  childhood,  1 
should  again  say  to  myself,  as  I  look  to  the  north,  “  O 
that  I  had  the  wings  of  a  dove !  ”  and  with  how  just 
a  confidence  in  thy  good  and  gracious  nature  might  I 
add  the  other  half  of  my  early  ejaculation,  — Asid 
that  way  1  would  £y  for  comfort !  ” 


THE  PLEASURES  OF  OPIUM. 


It  is  so  long  since  I  first  took  opium,  that  if  it  had 
Been  a  trifling  incident  in  my  life,  1  might  have  forgot¬ 
ten  its  date :  l  ut  cardinal  events  are  not  to  be  forgotten  * 
and,  from  circumstances  connected  with  it,  I  remember 
that  it  must  be  referred  to  the  autumn  of  1804.  Dur¬ 
ing  that  season  I  was  in  London,  having  come  thither 
for  the  first  time  since  my  entrance  at  college.  And 
my  introduction  to  opium  arose  in  the  following  way : 
From  an  early  age  I  had  been  accustomed  to  wash  my 
head  in  cold  water  at  least  once  a  day ;  being  suddenly 
seized  with  tooth-ache,  I  attributed  it  to  some  relaxation 
caused  by  an  accidental  intermission  of  that  practice ; 
lumped  out  of  bed,  plunged  my  head  into  a  basin  of 
cold  water,  and,  with  hair  thus  wetted,  went  to 
sleep.  The  next  morning,  as  I  need  hardly  say,  I 
awoke  with  excruciating  rheumatic  pains  of  the  head 
and  face,  from  which  1  had  hardly  any  respite  for 
about  twenty  days.  On  the  twenty-first  day  I  think  it 
was,  and  on  a  Sunday,  that  I  went  out  into  the  streets ; 
'■ather  to  run  away,  if  possible,  from  my  torments,  than 
with  any  distinct  purpose.  By  accident,  I  met  a  college 
acquaintance,  who  recommended  opium.  Opium  ’  dread 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


65 


agent  cf  unimaginable  pleasure  and  pain !  I  had  h'ard 
of  it  as  I  had  heard  of  manna  or  of  ambrosia,  but  no 
further;  how  unmeaning  a  sound  was  it  at  that  time! 
what  solemn  chords  does  it  now  strike  upon  my  Imart ! 
what  heart-quaking  vibrations  of  sad  and  happy  remem* 
biances !  Reverting  for  a  moment  to  these,  I  feel  a 
mystic  importance  attached  to  the  minutest  circum¬ 
stances  connected  with  the  place,  and  the  time,  and  the 
man  (if  man  he  was),  that  first  laid  open  to  me  the  para- 
dise  of  opium-eaters.  It  was  a  Sunday  afternoon,  we$ 
and  cheerless  ;  and  a  duller  spectacle  this  earth  of  ours 
lias  not  to  show  than  a  rainy  Sunday  in  London.  My 
road  homewards  lay  through  Oxford-street;  and  rear 
“the  stately  Pantheon”  (as  Mr.  Wordsworth  has  oblig¬ 
ingly  called  it)  I  saw  a  druggist’s  shop.  The  drug¬ 
gist  (unconscious  minister  of  celestial  pleasures !),  as 
if  in  sympathy  with  the  rainy  Sunday,  looked  dull  and 
stupid,  just  as  any  mortal  druggist  might  be  expected 
to  look  on  a  Sunday ;  and  when  I  asked  for  the  tinc¬ 
ture  of  opium,  he  gave  it  to  me  as  any  other  man 
might  do  ;  and,  furthermore,  out  of  my  shilling  returned 
to  me  what  seemed  to  be  a  real  copper  half-penny,  taken 
Dut  of  a  real  wooden  drawer.  Nevertheless,  in  spite 
of  such  indications  of  humanity,  he  has  ever  since 
existed  in  my  mind  as  a  beatific  vision  of  an  immor¬ 
tal  druggist,  sent  down  to  earth  on  a  special  mission 
to  myself.  And  it  confirms  me  in  this  way  of  con¬ 
sidering  him,  that  when  I  next  came  up  to  London.  I 
„Gught  him  near  the  stately  Pantheon,  and  found  him 
not ,  and  thus  to  me,  who  knew  not  his  name  (if,  indeed, 
ae  had  one),  he  seemed  rather  to  have  vanished  from 
Oxford-street  than  to  .lave  removed  to  any  bodily 
5 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


fashion.  The  reader  may  choose  to  think  of  him  as 
possibly,  no  more  than  a  sublunary  druggist:  it  maj 
be  so,  but  my  faith  is  better:  I  believe  him  to  have 
evanesced,5*  or  evaporated.  So  unwillingly  would  I 
connect  any  mortal  remembrances  with  that  hour,  and 
place,  and  creature,  that  first  brought  me  acquainted 
with  the  celestial  drug. 

Arrived  at  my  lodgings,  it  may  be  supposed  that  ] 
lost  not  a  moment  in  taking  the  quantity  prescribed.  I 
was  necessarily  ignorant  of  the  whole  art  and  mystery 
of  opium-taking;  and  what  I  took,  I  took  under  every 
disadvantage.  But  I  took  it;  and  in  an  hour,  —  oh 
heavens !  what  a  revulsion  !  what  an  upheaving,  from 
its  lowest  depths,  of  the  inner  spirit!  what  an  apoc¬ 
alypse  of  the  world  within  me  !  That  my  pains  had 
vanished  was  now  a  trifle  in  my  eyes ;  this  negative 
effect  was  swallowed  up  in  the  immensity  of  those  posi¬ 
tive  effects  which  had  opened  before  me,  in  the  abyss 
of  divine  enjoyment  thus  suddenly  revealed.  Here  was 
a  panacea,  a  (paguaxov  vsnevdei,  for  all  human  woes 
here  was  the  secret  of  happiness,  about  which  philos¬ 
ophers  had  disputed  for  so  many  ages,  at  once  discov¬ 
ered  ;  happiness  might  now  be  bought  for  a  penny,  and 

*  Evanesced :  —  this  way  of  going  off  from  the  stage  of  life 
tppears  U  have  been  well  known  in  the  17th  century,  but  at  that 
time  to  have  been  considered  a  peculiar  privilege  of  blood  royal 
and  by  no  means  t'  be  allowed  to  druggists.  For,  about  the  year 
1686,  a  poet  of  rather  ominous  name  (and  who,  by  the  by,  diQ 
ample  justice  to  his  name),  namely,  Mr.  Flat-m/.n,  in  speaking 
»f  the  death  of  Charles  II.,  expresses  his  surprise  that  any  prints 
ihcuid  :ommit  so  absurd  an  act  as  dying ;  because,  says  he. 

Kings  should  disdain  to  die,  and  only  disappear  ; 

They  should  abscond,  that  is,  into  the  other  world. 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  6rJ 

carried  m  the  waistcoat-pocket;  portable  ecstasies 
mi$ht  be  had  corked  up  in  a  pint-bottle ;  and  peace  of 
nnii.d  could  be  sent  down  in  gallons  by  the  mail-coach. 
But,  if  I  talk  in  this  way,  the  reader  will  think  I  am 
laughing;  and  I  can  assure  him  that  nobody  will  laugh 
long  who  deals  much  with  opium :  its  pleasures  even 
are  of  a  grave  and  solemn  complexion ;  and,  in  his  hap¬ 
piest  state,  the  opium-eater  cannot  present  himse.f  ir. 
the  character  of  L’ Allegro ;  even  then,  he  speaks  and 
thinks  as  becomes  II  Penseroso.  Nevertheless,  I  have 
a  very  reprehensible  way  of  jesting,  at  times,  in  the 
midst  of  my  own  misery ;  and,  unless  when  I  am 
checked  by  some  more  powerful  feelings,  I  am  afraid  I 
shall  be  guilty  of  this  indecent  practice  even  in  these 
annals  of  suffering  or  enjoyment.  The  reader  must 
allow  a  little  to  my  infirm  nature  in  this  respect ;  and, 
with  a  few  indulgences  of  that  sort,  I  shall  endeavor 
to  be  as  grave,  if  not  drowsy,  as  fits  a  theme  like 
apium,  so  anti-mercurial  as  it  really  is,  and  so  drowsy 
is  it  is  falsely  reputed. 

And,  first,  one  word  with  respect  to  its  bodily  effects ; 
for  upon  all  that  has  been  hitherto  written  on  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  opium,  whether  by  travellers  in  Turkey  (who 
may  plead  their  privilege  of  lying  as  an  old  immemorial 
right)  or  by  professors  of  medicine,  writing  ex  cathedra 
I  have  but  one  emphatic  criticism  to  pronounce,— 
Lies  !  lies  !  lies  !  I  remember  once,  in  passing  a  book 
stall,  to  have  caught  these  words  from  a  page  of  some 
satiric  author:  “By  this  time  I  oecame  convinced 
that  the  London  newspapers  spoke  truth  at  least  twice 
a  week,  namely,  on  Tuesday  and  Saturday,  and  might 
nafely  be  depended  upon  for  —  the  list  of  bankrupts. 


88 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


In  like  manner,  I  do  by  no  means  deny  that  soma 
truths  have  been  delivered  to  the  world  in  regard  ta 
opium;  thus,  it  has  been  repeatedly- affirmed,  by  the 
learned,  that  opium  is  a  dusky  brown  in  color,  —  ana 
this,  take  notice,  I  grant ;  secondly,  that  it  is  rathe" 
dear,  which  also  I  grant,  —  for,  in  my  time,  East  India 
opium  has  been  three  guineas  a  pound,  and  Turkey, 
eight;  and,  thirdly,  that  if  you  eat  a  good  deal  of  it, 
most  probably  you  must  do  what  is  particularly  dis¬ 
agreeable  to  any  man  of  regular  habits,  namely,  —  die.* 
These  weighty  proposition's  are,  all  and  singular,  true ; 
I  cannot  gainsay  them ;  and  truth  ever  was,  and  will 
be,  commendable.  But,  in  these  three  theorems,  1 
believe  we  have  exhausted  the  stock  of  knowledge 
yet  accumulated  by  man  on  the  subject  of  opium.  And, 
therefore,  worthy  doctors,  as  there  seems  to  be  room  for 
further  discoveries,  stand  aside,  and  allow  me  to  come 
"orward  and  lecture  on  this  matter. 

First,  then,  it  is  not  so  much  affirmed  as  taken  for 
granted,  by  all  who  ever  mention  opium,  formally  or 
incidentally,  that  it  does  or  can  produce  intoxication. 
Now,  reader,  assure  yourself,  meo  periculo ,  that  no 
quantity  of  opium  ever  did,  or  could,  intoxicate.  As 
to  the  tincture  of  opium  (commonly  called  laudanum), 
that  might  certainly  intoxicate,  if  a  man  could  bear  tc 
take  enough  of  it;  but  why?  because  it  contains  so 

*  Of  this,  however,  the  learned  appear  latterly  to  have  doubted  •, 
^or,  in  a  pirated  edition  of  Buchan’s  Domestic  Medicine,  which 
l  once  saw  in  the  hands  of  a  farmer’s  wife,  who  was  studying  i* 
for  the  benefit  of  her  vealth,  the  doctor  was  made  to  say,  —  “  Ba 
particularly  careful  nevei  to  take  above  five-and-twenty  ounces  of 
laudanum  at  once.”  The  true  reading  being  probably  five-and-twenty 
iropst  whica  are  held  to  be  equal  to  about  one  grain  of  cru  ie  opium 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


on 


much  proof  spirit,  and  not  because  it  contains  so  much 
opium.  But  crude  opium,  I  affirm  peremptorily,  is 
incapable  of  producing  any  state  of  body  at  all  resem¬ 
bling  that  which  is  produced  by  alcohol ;  and  not  in 
degree  only  incapable,  but  even  in  kind ;  it  is  not  in 
the  quantity  of  its  effects  merely,  but  in  the  quality, 
that  it  differs  altogether.  The  pleasure  given  by  wine 
is  always  mounting,  and  tending  to  a  crisis,  after  which 
it  declines;  that  from  opium,  when  once  generated,  is 
stationary  for  eight  or  ten  hours :  the  first,  to  borrow  a 
technical  distinction  from  medicine,  is  a  case  of  acute, 
the  second  of  chronic,  pleasure ;  the  one  is  a  flame, 
the  other  a  steady  and  equable  glow.  But  the  main 
distinction  lies  in  this,  that  whereas  wine  disorders  the 
mental  faculties,  opium,  on  the  contrary  (if  taken  in  a 
proper  manner),  introduces  amongst  them  the  most 
exquisite  order,  legislation,  and  harmony.  Wine  robs 
a  man  of  his  self-possession ;  opium  greatly  invigorates 
it.  Wine  unsettles  and  clouds  the  judgment,  and  gives 
a  preternatural  brightness,  and  a  vivid  exaltation,  to  the 
contempts  and  the  admirations,  to  the  loves  and  the 
hatreds,  of  the  drinker;  opium,  on  the  contrary,  com¬ 
municates  serenity  and  equipoise  to  all  the  faculties, 
active  or  passive ;  and,  with  respect  to  the  temper  and 
moral  feelings  in  general,  it  gives  simply  that  sort  of 
vital  warmth  which  is  approved  by  the  judgment,  and 
which  would  probably  always  accompany  a  bodily  con¬ 
stitution  of  primeval  or  antediluvian  health.  Thus,  for 
instance,  opium,  like  wine,  gives  an  expansion  to  tha 
Veart  anu  the  benevolent  affections,  but,  then,  with  this 
remarkable  difference,  that  in  the  sudden  development 
if  kind-heartedness  which  ac:ompanies  inebriation^ 


70 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


theie  is  always  more  or  less  of  a  maudlin  chaiacter 
which  exposes  it  to  the  contempt  of  the  bystander 
Men  shake  hands,  swear  eternal  friendship,  and  shed 
tears,  —  no  mortal  knows  why;  and  the  sensual  crea¬ 
ture  is  clearly  uppermost.  But  the  expansion  of  the 
bemgner  feelings,  incident  to  opium,  is  no  febrile  ac» 
cess,  but  a  healthy  restoration  to  that  state  which  the 
mind  would  naturally  recover  upon  the  removal  of  any 
deep-seated  irritation  of  pain  that  had  disturbed  and 
quarrelled  with  the  impulses  of  a  heart  originall}'-  just 
and  good.  True  it  is,  that  even  wine,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  and  with  certain  men,  rather  tends  to  exalt  and 
to  steady  the  intellect ;  I  myself,  who  have  never  been 
a  great  wine-drinker,  used  to  find  that  half  a  dozen 
glasses  of  wine  advantageously  affected  the  faculties, 
brightened  and  intensified  the  consciousness,  and  gave 
to  the  mind  a  feeling  of  being  “  ponderibus  librata  suis;  ” 
and  certainly  it  is  most  absurdly  said,  in  popular  lan¬ 
guage,  of  any  man,  that  he  is  disguised  in  liquor;  for, 
on  the  contrary,  most  men  are  disguised  by  sobriety ; 
and  it  is  when  they  are  drinking  (as  some  old  gentle¬ 
man  says  in  Athenoeus)  that  men  display  themselves  in 
their  true  complexion  of  character ;  which  surely  is  not 
disguising  themselves.  But  still,  wine  constantly  leads 
a  man  to  the  brink  of  absurdity  and  extravagance: 
and,  beyond  a  certain  point,  it  is  sure  to  volatilize  and 
to  disperse  the  intellectual  energies ;  whereas  opium 
always  seems  to  compose  what  had  been  agitated,  and 
to  concentrate  what  had  been  distracted.  In  short,  tc 
sum  up  all  in  one  word,  a  man  who  is  inebriated,  o. 
lending  to  inebriation,  is,  and  feels  that  he  is,  in  a  con- 
lit  ton  which  calls  up  into  supremacy  the  merely  hurnao 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


71 


loo  often  the  brutal,  part  of  his  nature;  but  the 
opium-eater  (I  speak  of  him  who  is  not  suffering-  from 
any  disease,  or  other  remote  effects  of  opium)  feels 
that  the  diviner  part  of  his  nature  is  paramount;  that 
is,  the  moral  affections  are  in  a  state  of  cloudless 
serenity ;  and  over  all  is  the  great  light  of  the  majestic 
intellect. 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  true  church  on  the  subject 
of  opium :  of  which  church  I  acknowledge  myself  to 
be  the  only  member,  —  the  alpha  and  omega;  but  then 
it  is  to  be  recollected,  that  I  speak  from  the  ground  of 
a  large  and  profound  personal  experience,  whereas  most 
of  the  unscientific^  authors  who  have  at  all  treated  of 

*  Amongst  the  great  herd  of  travellers,  &c.,  who  show  sufficiently 
by  their  stupidity  that  they  never  held  any  intercourse  with  opium, 
I  must  caution  my  readers  specially  against  the  brilliant  author  of 
u  Anastasius.”  This  gentleman,  whose  wit  would  lead  one  to  pre¬ 
sume  him  an  opium-eater,  has  made  it  impossible  to  consider  him 
i that  character,  from  the  grievous  misrepresentation  which  he  has 
given  of  its  effects,  at  page  215-217,  of  vol.  I.  Upon  consideration, 
it  must  appear  such  to  the  author  himself;  for,  waiving  the  errors 
I  have  insisted  on  in  the  test,  which  (and  others)  are  adopted  in 
the  fullest  manner,  he  will  himself  admit  that  an  old  gentleman, 
“with  a  snow-white  beard,”  who  eats  “ample  doses  of  opium,” 
and  is  yet  able  to  deliver  what  is  meant  and  received  as  very 
weighty  counsel  on  the  had  effects  of  that  practice,  is  but  an 
indifferent  evidence  that  opium  either  kills  people  prematurely,  ot 
sends  them  into  a  mad-house.  But,  for  my  part,  I  see  into  this 
old  gentleman  and  his  motives  ;  the  fact  is,  he  was  enamored  ot 
“  the  little  golden  receptacle  of  the  pernicious  drug,”  which  Anas 
tasius  carried  about  him  ;  and  no  way  of  obtaining  it  so  safe  and 
so  feasible  occurred,  as  that  of  frightening  its  owner  out  of  his 
wits  (which,  by  the  by,  are  none  of  the  strongest).  This  com¬ 
mentary  throws  a  new  light  upon  the  case,  v  id  greatly  improves 
t  &s  a  story  ;  for  the  oid  gentleman’s  speech,  considered  as  a  lec- 
jure  on  pharmacy,  is  highly  absurd  hut  consic  ered  as  a  hoax  c.a 
inastasius,  it  reads  excellently. 


72 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


ipium,  ar.d  even  of  those  who  have  written  expiesjlv 
on  the  materia  medica ,  make  it  evident,  from  the  hor* 
ror  they  express  of  it,  that  their  experimental  knowl* 
edge  of  its  action  is  none  at  all.  1  will,  however 
candidly  acknowledge  that  1  have  met  with  one  person 
who  bore  evidence  to  its  intoxicating  power,  such  as 
staggered  my  own  incredulity ;  for  he  was  a  surgeon, 
and  had  himself  taken  opium  largely.24  I  happened  to  say 
to  him,  that  his  enemies  (as  I  had  heard)  charged  him 
with  talking  nonsense  on  politics,  and  that  his  friends 
apologized  for  him  by  suggesting  that  he  was  con¬ 
stantly  in  a  state  of  intoxication  from  opium.  Now,  the 
accusation,  said  I,  is  not  prima  facie ,  and  of  necessity, 
an  absurd  one ;  but  the  defence  is.  To  my  surprise, 
however,  he  insisted  that  both  his  enemies  and  his 
friends  were  in  the  right.  “  I  will  maintain,”  said  he, 
“  that  I  do  talk  nonsense  ;  and  secondly,  I  will  maintain 
that  I  do  not  talk  nonsense  upon  principle,  or  with 
any  view  to  profit,  but  solely  and  simply,”  said  he, 
“  solely  and  simply,  —  solely  and  simply  (repeating  it 
three  times  over),  because  I  am  drunk  with  opium ; 
and  that  daily.”  1  replied,  that  as  to  the  allegation  of 
his  enemies,  as  it  seemed  to  be  established  upon  such 
respectable  testimony,  seeing  that  the  three  parties 
concerned  all  agreed  in  it,  it  did  not  become  me  to 
i|uestion  it;  but  the  defence  set  up  I  must  demur  to.  He 
proceeded  to  discuss  the  matter,  and  to  lay  down  his 
‘easons;  but  it  seemed  to  me  so  impolite  to  pursue  an 
argument  which  must  have  presumed  a  man  mistaken 
in  a  point  belonging  to  his  own  profession,  that  1  did 
not  press  him  even  wrhen  his  course  of  argument 
seemed  open  to  objection ;  not  to  mention  that  a  man 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


73 


frho  talks  nonsense,  even  though  “with  no  view  to 
profit,”  is  not  altogether  the  most  agreeable  partner  in  a 
dispute,  whether  as  opponent  or  respondent.  I  confess, 
however,  that  the  authority  of  a  surgeon,  and  one  who 
was  reputed  a  good  one,  may  seem  a  weighty  one  to 
my  prejudice ;  but  still  I  must  plead  my  experience, 
which  was  greater  than  his  greatest  by  seven  thousand 
drops  a  day ;  and  though  it  was  not  possible  to  suppose 
i  medical  man  unacquainted  with  the  characteristic 
symptoms  of  vinous  intoxication,  yet  it  struck  me  that 
he  might  proceed  on  a  logical  error  of  using  the  wrord 
intoxication  with  too  great  latitude,  and  extending  it 
generically  to  all  modes  of  nervous  excitement,  instead 
of  restricting  it  as  the  expression  of  a  specific  sort  of 
excitement,  connected  with  certain  diagnostics.  Some 
people  have  maintained,  in  my  hearing,  that  they  had 
been  drunk  upon  green  tea  ;  and  a  medical  student  in 
London,  for  whose  knowledge  in  his  profession  I  have 
reason  to  feel  great  respect,  assured  me,  the  other  day, 
that  a  patient,  in  recovering  from  an  illness,  had  got 
drunk  on  a  beef-steak. 

Having  dwelt  so  much  on  this  first  and  leading  erroi 
■'n  respect  to  opium,  I  shall  notice  very  briefly  a  second 
und  a  third;  which  are,  that  the  elevation  of  spirits 
produced  by  opium  is  necessarily  followed  by  a  propor- 
,  'onate  depression,  and  that  the  natural  and  even  imme¬ 
diate  consequence  of  opium  is  torpor  and  stagnation 
tnimal  and  mental.  The  first  of  these  errors  I  shall 
Content  myself  with  simply  denying;  assuring  my 
•eader,  that  for  ten  years,  during  which  I  took  opium  at 
Btervals,  the  day  succeeding  to  that  on  which  1  allowed 


74 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


myself  this  luxury  was  always  a  day  ef  unusually  good 
spirits. 

With  respect  to  the  torpor  supposed  to  follow,  ol 
rather  (if  we  were  to  credit  the  numerous  pictures  of 
Turkish  opium-eaters)  to  accompany,  the  practice  of 
opium-eating,  I  deny  that  also.  Certainly,  opium  is 
classed  under  the  head  of  narcotics,  and  some  such 
effect  it  may  produce  in  the  end;  but  the  primary 
effects  of  opium  are  always,  and  in  the  highest  degree, 
to  excite  and  stimulate  the  system :  this  first  stage  of 
its  action  always  lasted  with  me,  during  my  novitiate, 
for  upwards  of  eight  hours  ;  so  that  it  must  be  the  fault 
of  the  opium-eater  himself,  if  he  does  not  so  time  his 
exhibition  of  the  dose  (to  speak  medically)  as  that  the 
whole  weight  of  its  narcotic  influence  may  descend 
upon  his  sleep.  Turkish  opium-eaters,  it  seems,  are 
absurd  enough  to  sit,  like  so  many  equestrian  statues, 
on  logs  of  wood  as  stupid  as  themselves.  But,  that  the 
reader  may  judge  of  the  degree  in  which  opium  is 
likely  to  stupefy  the  faculties  of  an  Englishman,  I  shall 
(by  way  of  treating  the  question  illustratively,  rather 
than  argumentatively)  describe  the  way  in  which  ) 
myself  often  passed  an  opium*  evening  in  London 
during  the  period  between  1804  and  1812.  It  will  be 
Been,  that  at  least  opium  did  not  move  me  to  seek  soli¬ 
tude,  and  much  less  to  seek  inactivity,  or  the  torpid 
ttate  of  self-involution  ascribed  to  the  Turks.  1  give 
this  account  at  the  risk  of  being  pronounced  a  cmaj 
enthusiast  or  visionary  ;  but  I  regard  that  little.  I  must 
desire  my  reader  to  bear  in  mind,  that  I  was  a  hard 
itudent,  end  at  severe  studies  for  all  the  rest  of 
time  pec  certainly  I  had  a  right  occasionally  to  relam 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


75 


&ons  as  well  as  other  people  :  these,  however,  I  allowed 
thyself  but  seldom. 

The  late  Duke  of - 25  used  to  say,  “Next  Friday, 

oy  the  blessing  of  Heaven,  I  purpose  to  be  drunk and 
in  like  manner  I  used  to  fix  beforehand  how  often, 
within  a  given  time,  and  when,  I  would  commit  a 
debauch  of  opium.  This  was  seldom  more  than  once  in 
three  weeks ;  for  at  that  time  I  could  not  have  ventured 
to  call  every  day  (as  I  did  afterwards)  for  “  a  glass  of 
laudanum,  negus,  warm ,  and  without  sugar.”  No ;  as 
[  b^ve  said,  I  seldom  drank  laudanum,  at  that  time 
more  than  once  in  three  weeks :  this  was  usually  on  & 
Tuesday  or  a  Saturday  night;  my  reason  for  which 
was  this.  In  those  days,  Grassini26  sang  at  the  opera,  and 
aer  voice  was  delightful  to  me  beyond  all  that  I  had  ever 
neard.  I  know  not  what  may  be  the  state  of  the  opera- 
house  now,  having  never  been  within  its  walls  for  seven 
or  eight  years ;  but  at  that  time  it  was  by  much  the  most 
pleasant  place  of  resort  in  London  for  passing  an  even¬ 
ing.  Five  shillings  admitted  one  to  the  gallery,  which 
was  subject  to  far  less  annoyance  than  the  pit  of  the 
theatres ;  the  orchestra  was  distinguished,  by  its  sweet 
and  melodious  grandeur,  from  all  English  orchestras,  the 
omposition  of  which,  1  confess,  is  not  acceptable  to  my 
ear,  from  the  predominance  of  the  clangorous  instru 
ments,  and  the  almost  absolute  tyranny  of  the  violin, 
The  choruses  were  divine  to  hear ;  and  when  Grassini 
appeared  in  some  interlude,  as  she  often  did,  and  poured 
forth  her  passionate  soul  as  Andromache,  at  the  tomb  of 
Hector,  &c.,  I  question  whether  any  Turk,  of  all  that 
*ver  entered  the  paradise  of  3pium-eaters,  can  have  had 
V»lf  the  pleasure  I  had.  But,  indeed,  I  honor  tne  barba- 


76 


CO  NFESSIONS  OF  AN 


rians  loo  much  by  supposing  them  capable  of  an| 
pleasures  approaching  to  the  intellectual  ones  ot  an  ' 
Englishman.  For  music  is  an  intellectual  or  a  sens  mu 
pleasure,  according  to  the  temperament  of  him  who 
hears  it.  And,  by  the  by,  with  the  exception  of  the 
fine  extravaganza  on  that  subject  in  Twelfth  Night,  1 
do  not  recollect  more  than  one  thing  said  adequately 
on  the  subject  of  music  in  all  literature;  it  is  a  passage 
in  the  Religio  Medici *  of  Sir  T.  Brown,  and,  though 
chiefly  remarkable  for  its  sublimity,  has  also  a  philo¬ 
sophic  value,  inasmuch  as  it  points  to  the  true  theory 
of  musical  effects.  The  mistake  of  most  people  is,  to 
suppose  that  it  is  by  the  ear  they  communicate  with 
music,  and  therefore  that  they  are  purely  passive  to  its 
effects.  But  this  is  not  so ;  it  is  by  the  reaction  of  the 
mind  upon  the  notices  of  the  ear  (the  matter  coming  by 
the  senses,  the  form  from  the  mind)  that  the  pleasure  is 
constructed ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  people  of  equally 
good  ear  differ  so  much  in  this  point  from  one  another 
Now  opium,  by  greatly  increasing  the  activity  of  the 
mind,  generally  increases,  of  necessity,  that  particular 
mode  of  its  activity  by  which  we  are  able  to  construct 
out  of  the  raw  material  of  organic  sound  an  elaborate 
intellectual  pleasure.  But,  says  a  friend,  a  succession 
of  musical  sounds  is  to  me  like  a  collection  of  Arabic 
characters:  I  can  attach  no  ideas  to  them.  Ideas!  my 
good  sir  ?  there  is  no  occasion  for  them ;  all  that  class 
of  ideas  which  can  be  available  in  such  a  case  has  o 
anguage  of  representative  feelings.  But  this  is  a  sub. 

*  I  have  n  it  the  book  at  this  moment  to  consult ;  but  I  think  tha 
passage  begins,  “And  even  that  tavern  music,  which  makes  out 
tiaa  merry,  another  mad.  in  me  strikes  a  deep  fit  of  devctiou,”  fa?. 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


71 


ect  foreign  to  my  present  purposes;  it  is  sufficient  to 
say,  that  a  chorus,  &c.,  of  elaborate  harmony,  displayed 
before  me,  as  in  a  piece  of  arras-work,  the  whcle  of  my 
past  life, -—not  as  if  recalled  by  an  act  of  memory, 
but  as  if  present  and  incarnated  in  the  music ;  no  longer 
painful  to  dwell  upon,  but  the  detail  of  its  incidents 
removed,  or  blended  in  some  hazy  abstraction,  and  its 
passions  exalted,  spiritualized,  and  sublimed.  All  this 
was  to  be  had  for  five  shillings.  And  over  and  above 
the  music  of  the  stage  and  the  orchestra,  I  had  all  around 
me,  in  the  intervals  of  the  performance,  the  music  of  the 
Italian  language  talked  by  Italian  women, —  for  the  gal¬ 
lery  was  usually  crowded  with  Italians,  —  and  I  listened 
with  a  pleasure  such  as  that  with  which  Weld,  the  trav¬ 
eller,  lay  and  listened,  in  Canada,  to  the  sweet  laughter 
of  Indian  women;  for  the  less  you  understand  of  a  lan¬ 
guage,  the  more  sensible  you  are  to  the  melody  or  harsh¬ 
ness  of  its  sounds.  For  such  a  purpose,  therefore,  it  was 
an  advantage  to  me  that  I  was  a  poor  Italian  scholar, 
reading  it  but  little,  and  not  speaking  it  at  all,  nor 
understanding  a  tenth  part  of  what  I  heard  spoken. 

These  were  my  opera  pleasures ;  but  another  pleasure 
.  had,  which,  as  it  could  be  had  only  on  a  Saturday 
night,  occasionally  struggled  with  my  love  of  the  opera ; 
for,  at  that  time,  Tuesday  and  Saturday  we're  the 
*egular  opera  nights.  On  this  subject  I  am  afraid  I  shall 
oe  rather  obscure,  but,  I  can  assure  the  reader,  not  at  all 
more  so  than  Marinus  in  his  life  of  Proclus,  or  many 
nther  biographers  and  auto-biograpners  of  fair  reputa¬ 
tion.  This  pleasure,  I  nave  said,  was  to  oe  had  only 
m  a  Saturday  night.  What,  then,  was  Saturday  night 
to  me,  more  than  any  ctner  night  ?  I  had  no  labors  that 


78 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


I  rested  from;  no  wages  to  receive;  what  needed  I  to 
care  for  Saturday  night,  more  than  as  it  was  a  summons 
to  hear  Grassini  ?  True,  most  logical  reader;  what 
you  say  is  unanswerable.  And  yet  so  it  was  and  is 
that  whereas  different  men  throw  their  feelings  into 
different  channels,  and  most  are  apt  to  show  their  inter¬ 
est  in  the  concerns  of  the  poor  chiefly  by  sympathy, 
expressed  in  some  shape  or  other,  with  their  dlstressea 
and  sorrows,  I,  at  that  time,  was  disposed  to  express  my 
interest  by  sympathizing  with  their  pleasures.  The 
pains  of  poverty  I  had  lately  seen  too  much  of, —  more 
than  I  wished  to  remember;  but  the  pleasures  of  the 
poor,  their  consolations  of  spirit,  and  their  reposes  from 
bodily  toil,  can  never  become  oppressive  to  contemplate. 
Now,  Saturday  night  is  the  season  for  the  chief  regular 
and  periodic  return  of  rest  to  the  poor ;  in  this  point  the 
most  hostile  sects  unite,  and  acknowledge  a  common 
link  of  brotherhood ;  almost  all  Christendom  rests  from 
its  labors.  It  is  a  rest  introductory  to  another  rest ;  and 
divided  by  a  whole  day  and  two  nights  from  the 
renewal  of  toil.  On  this  account  1  feel  always,  on  a 
Saturday  night,  as  though  1  also  were  released  from 
some  yoke  of  labor,  had  some  wages  to  receive,  and 
some  luxury  of  repose  to  enjoy.  For  the  sake,  there¬ 
fore,  of  witnessing,  upon  as  large  a  scale  as  possible,  a 
spectacle  with  which  my  sympathy  was  so  entire,  1 
iised  often,  on  Saturday  nights,  after  I  had  taken  opium, 
to  wander  forth,  without  much  regarding  the  direction 
lt  the  distance,  to  all  the  markets,  and  other  parts  cf 
London,  to  which  the  poor  resort  on  a  Saturday  night 
for  laying  out  their  wages.  Many  a  family  party,  con 
eisting  of  a  man,  his  wife,  and  sometimes  one  or  twc 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


79 


•f  his  children,  have  I  listened  to,  as  they  stood  con* 
Bulting  on  their  ways  and  means,  or  the  strenglh  of 
their  exchequer,  or  the  price  of  household  arlicles. 
Gradually  I  became  familiar  with  their  wishes,  their 
difficulties,  and  their  opinions.  Sometimes  there  might 
be  heard  murmurs  of  discontent;  but  far  oftener 
expressions  on  the  countenance,  or  uttered  in  words,  of 
patience,  hope,  and  tranquillity.  And,  taken  generally, 
I  must  say,  that,  in  this  point,  at  least,  the  poor  are  far 
more  philosophic  than  the  rich ;  that  they  show  a  more 
ready  and  cheerful  submission  to  what  they  consider  as 
irremediable  evils,  or  irreparable  losses.  Whenever  1 
saw  occasion,  or  could  do  it  without  appearing  to  be 
intrusive,  I  joined  their  parties,  and  gave  my  opinion 
upon  the  matter  in  discussion,  which,  if  not  always 
judicious,  was  always  received  indulgently.  If  wages 
were  a  little  higher,  or  expected  to  be  so,  or  the  quar¬ 
tern  loaf  a  little  lower,  or  it  was  reported  that  onions 
and  butter  were  expected  to  fall,  I  was  glad ;  yet,  if  the 
contrary  were  true,  I  drew  from  opium  some  means  of 
consoling  myself.  For  opium  (like  the  bee,  that  ex¬ 
tracts  its  materials  indiscriminately  from  roses  and 
from  the  soot27  of  chimneys)  can  overrule  all  feelings 
into  a  compliance  with  the  master-key.  Some  of  these 
1  ambles  led  me  to  great  distances  ;  for  an  opium-eater 
is  too  happy  to  observe  the  motion  of  time.  And 
sometimes,  in  my  attempts  to  steer  homewards,  upon 
nautical  principles,  by  fixing  my  eye  on  the  pcue-star, 
md  seeking  ambitiously  for  a  north-west  passage,  instead 
of  circumnavigating  J1  the  capes  and  head-lands  1 
M  doubled  in  my  outward  voyage,  I  came  suddenly 
ijpou  such  knotty  prob?  cms  of  alleys,  such  enigmatica< 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


BO 

entries,  and  such  sphinx’s  riddles  of  streets  without 
thoroughfares,  as  must,  I  conceive,  bathe  the  audacity 
of  porters,  and  confound  the  intellects  of  hackney 
coachmen.  I  could  almost  have  believed,*  at  times,  that 
I  must  be  the  first  discoverer  of  some  of  these  terra 
incognita ,  and  doubted  whether  they  had  yet  been  laid 
down  in  the  modern  charts  of  London.  For  all  this, 
however,  I  paid  a  heavy  price  in  distant  years,  when 
the  human  face  tyrannized  over  my  dreams,  and  the 
perplexities  of  my  steps  in  London  came  back  and 
haunted  my  sleep,  with  the  feeling  of  perplexities 
moral  or  intellectual,  that  brought  confusion  to  the 
reason,  or  anguish  and  remorse  to  the  conscience. 

Thus  I  have  shown  that  opium  does  not,  of  necessity 
produce  inactivity  or  torpor;  but  that,  on  the  contrary, 
it  often  led  me  into  markets  and  theatres.  Yet,  in 
candor,  I  will  admit  that  markets  and  theatres  are  no 
the  appropriate  haunts  of  the  opium-eater,  when  in  the 
divinest  state  incident  to  his  enjoyment.  In  that  state 
crowds  become  an  oppression  to  him  ;  music,  even,  toi 
sensual  and  gross.  He  naturally  seeks  solitude  and 
silence,  as  indispensable  conditions  of  those  trances,  or 
orofoundest  reveries,  which  are  the  crown  and  consuim 
matron  of  what  opium  can  do  for  human  nature.  I, 
whose  disease  it  was  to  meditate  too  much  and  to 
observe  too  little,  and  who,  upon  my  first  entrance  at 
’’ollege,  was  nearly  falling  into  a  deep  melancholy, 
'Tom  brooding  too  much  on  the  sufferings  which  I  had 
witnessed  in  London,  was  sufficiently  aware  of  the 
tendencies  of  my  own  thoughts  to  do  all  I  could  tc 
sounteract  them.  I  was,  indeed,  like  a  person  who 
>*c:ording  to  the  old  legend,  had  entered  the  cave  of 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-LATER 


rrophonius ;  ami  the  remedies  I  sought  were  to  force 
myself  into  society,  and  to  keep  my  understanding  in 
continual  activity  upon  matters  of  science.  But  for 
these  remedies,  I  should  certainly  have  become  hypo- 
chondriacally  melancnoly.  In  after  years,  however, 
when  my  cheerfulness  was  more  fully  reestablished,  l 
yielded  to  my  natural  inclination  for  a  solitary  life 
And  at  that  time  I  often  fell  into  these  reveries  upen 
taking  opium  ;  and  more  than  once  it  has  happened  to 
me,  on  a  summer  night,  when  I  have  been  at  an  open 
window,  ift  a  room  from  which  I  could  overlook  the  sea 
at  a  mile  below  me,  and  could  command  a  view  of  the 

great  town  of  L - , 28  at  about  the  same  distance,  that  I 

have  sat  from  sunset  to  sunrise,  motionless,  and  without 
wishing  to  move. 

I  shall  be  charged  with  mysticism,  Behmenism,  quiet¬ 
ism,  &c. ;  but  that  shall  not  alarm  me.  Sir  H.  Vane, 
the  younger,  was  one  of  our  wisest  men ;  and  let  my 
readers  see  if  he,  in  his  philosophical  works,  be  half  as 
unmystical  as  I  am.  I  say,  then,  that  it  has  often 
struck  me  that  the  scene  itself  was  somewhat  typical 
of  what  took  place  in  such  a  reverie.  The  town  of 

L - represented  the  earth,  with  its  sorrows  and  its 

graves  left  behind,  yet  not  out  of  sight,  nor  wholly  for* 
gotten.  The  ocean,  in  everlasting  but  gentle  agitation, 
and  brooded  over  by  dove-like  calm,  might  not  unfitly 
typify  the  mind,  and  the  mood  which  then  swayed  it. 
For  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  then  first  I  stood  at  a  distance, 
and  aloof  from  the  uproar  of  life ;  as  if  the  tumult,  the 
fever,  and  the  strife,  were  suspended  ;  a  respite  granted 
from  the  secret  burdens  of  the  heart;  a  sabbath  of 
epose ;  a  resting  from  hum  \n  .abors.  Here  were  the 

6 


82  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OFHJM-EATER. 

hopes  which  blossom  m  the  paths  of  life,  reconciled  with 
the  peace  which  is  in  the  grave ;  motions  of  the  intel 
lect  as  unwearied  as  the  heavens,  yet  for  all  anxieties  & 
halcyon  calm ;  a  tranquillity  that  seemed  no  product  of 
inertia,  but  as  if  resulting  from  mighty  and  equal  anta g« 
onisms ;  infinite  activities,  infinite  repose. 

O  just,  subtile,  and  mighty  opium !  that  to  the  hearts 
of  poor  and  rich  alike,  for  the  wounds  that  will  never 
heal,  and  for  “the  pangs  that  tempt  the  spirit  to  rebel,” 
bringest  an  assuaging  balm  ;  —  eloquent  opium  !  that 
with  thy  potent  rhetoric  stealest  away  the  purposes  of 
wrath,  and,  to  the  guilty  man,  for  one  night  givest  back 
the  hopes  of  his  youth,  and  hands  washed  pure  from 
blood ;  and,  to  the  proud  man,  a  brief  oblivion  for 

Wrongs  unredressed,  and  insults  unavenged  ; 

that  summonest  to  the  chancery  of  dreams,  for  the 
triumphs  of  suffering  innocence,  false  witnesses,  and 
confoundest  perjury,  and  dost  reverse  the  sentences  of 
unrighteous  judges; — thou  buildest  upon  the  bosom  of 
darkness,  out  of  the  fantastic  imagery  of  the  brain,  cities 
and  temples,  beyond  the  art  of  Phidias  and  Praxiteles,  — 
beyond  the  splendor  of  Babylon  and  Hekatompylos , 
and,  “  from  the  anarchy  of  dreaming  sleep,”  callest 
into  sunny  light  the  faces  cf  long-buried  beauties,  and 
the  blessed  household  countenances,  cleansed  from  the 
•*  dishonors  of  the  grave.”  Thou  only  givest  these 
jfifta  to  man ;  and  thou  hast  the  keys  of  Paradise,  ok 
ust,  subtile,  and  mighty  opium ! 


INTRODUCTION 


TO 

THE  PAINS  OF  OPIUM 


Courteous,  and,  I  hope,  indulgent  reader  (for  all 
Biy  readers  must  be  indulgent  ones,  or  else,  I  fear,  J 
ghan  shock  them  too  much  to  count  on  their  courtesy), 
having  accompanied  me  thus  far,  now  let  me  request 
you  to  move  onwards,  for  about  eight  years ;  that  is  to 
say,  from  1804  (when  I  said  that  my  acquaintance  with 
opium  iirst  began)  to  1812.  The  years  of  academic 
life  are  now  over  and  gone,  —  almost  forgotten ;  the 
student’s  cap  no  longer  presses  my  temples;  if  my 
cap  exists  at  all,  it  presses  those  of  some  youthful 
scholar,  I  trust,  as  happy  as  myself,  and  as  passionate 
a  lover  of  knowledge.  My  gown  is,  by  this  time,  I  dare 
to  say,  in  the  same  condition  with  many  thousands  of 
excellent  books  in  the  Bodleian,  namely,  diligently 
perused  by  certain  studious  moths  and  worms;  or 
departed,  however  (which  is  all  that  I  know  of  its 
fete),  to  that  great  rsservoil  of  somewhere ,  to  which 
*11  the  tea-cups,  tea-caddieo  tea-pots,  tea-kettles,  M 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


$4 

have  departed  (not  to  speak  of  still  frailer  vessels.,  such 
as  glasses,  decanters,  bed-makers,  &c.}.  which  occa¬ 
sional  resemblances  in  the  present  generation  of  tea¬ 
cups,  &c.,  remind  me  of  having  once  possessed,  but  of 
whose  departure  and  final  fate,  I,  in  common  with 
most  gownsmen  of  either  universitv.  could  give,  I  sus¬ 
pect,  but  an  obscure  and  conjectural  historvr.  The 
persecutions  of  the  chapel-bell,  sounding  its  unwelcome 
summons  to  six  o’clock  matins,  interrupts  my  slumbeni 
no  longer;  the  porter  who  rang  it,  upon  whose  beauti¬ 
ful  nose  (bronze,  inlaid  with  copper)  I  wrote,  in  retali¬ 
ation,  so  many  Greek  epigrams  Avhilst  I  was  dressing 
is  dead,  and  has  ceased  to  disturb  anybody ;  and  I, 
and  many  others  who  suffered,  much  from  his  tintin- 
nabulous  propensities,  have  now  agreed  to  overlook  his 
errors,  and  have  forgiven  him.  Even  with  the  bell  1 
am  now  in  charity ;  it  rings,  1  suppose,  as  formerly 
thrice  a  day;  and  cruelly  annoys,  I  doubt  not,  many 
worthy  gentlemen,  and  disturbs  their  peace  of  mind  ; 
but,  as  to  me,  in  this  year  1812,  I  regard  its  treach¬ 
erous  voice  no  longer  (treacherous  I  call  it,  for,  by 
some  refinement  of  malice,  it  spoke  in  as  sweet  and 
silvery  tones  as  if  it  had  been  inviting  one  to  a  party); 
its  tones  have  no  longer,  indeed,  power  to  reach  me 
let  the  wind  sit  as  favorable  as  the  malice  of  the  bel. 
itself  could  wish  ;  for  I  am  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
away  from  it,  and  buried  in  the  depth  of  moun- 
vains.  And  what  am  I  doing  amongst  the  mountains  ? 
Taking  opium.  Yes,  but  what  else  ?  Why,  reader,  in 
1812,  the  year  we  are  now  arrived  at,  as  well  as  for 
tome  years  previous,  I  have  been  chiefly  studying 
Kerman  metaphysics,  in  the  writings  of  Kant,  Fichte 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER 


85 


Sehelling  &c;  And  how,  and  in  what  manner,  do  i 
.ive  ?  in  short,  what  class  or  description  of  mon  do  ! 
belong  to  ?  I  am  at  this  period,  namely,  in  1812,  living 
in  a  cottage ;  and  with  a  single  female  servant  (honi  soil 
qui  mal  y  pense),  who,  amongst  my  neighbors,  passes  by 
the  name  of  my  “  house-keeper.”  And,  as  a  scholar 
end  a  man  of  learned  education,  and  in  that  sense  a 
gentleman,  I  may  presume  to  class  myself  as  an  unwor¬ 
thy  member  of  that  indefinite  body  called  gentlemen. 
Partly  on  the  ground  I  have  assigned,  perhaps,  — 
partly  because,  from  my  having  no  visible  calling  o? 
business,  it  is  rightly  judged  that  I  must  be  living  on 
my  private  fortune,  —  I  am  so  classed  by  my  neighbors  ; 
and,  by  the  courtesy  of  modern  England,  I  am  usually 
addressed  on  letters,  &c.,  Esquire ,  though  having,  I  fear, 
in  the  rigorous  construction  of  heralds,  but  slender 
pretensions  to  that  distinguished  honor;  —  yes,  in  popu- 
lir  estimation,  I  am  X.  Y.  Z.,  Esquire,  but  not  Justice 
of  the  Peace,  nor  Gustos  Rotulorum.  Am  I  married  ? 
Not  yet.  And  I  still  take  opium  ?  On  Saturday  nights. 
And,  perhaps,  have  taken  it  unblushingly  ever  since 
“  the  rainy  Sunday,”  and  “  the  stately  Pantheon,”  ard 
“  the  beatific  druo-odst  ”  of  1804  ?  Even  so.  And  how 

o  o 

do  I  find  my  health  after  all  this  opium-eating  ?  in 
short,  how  do  I  do  ?  Why,  pretty  well,  I  thank  you, 
leader;  in  the  phrase  of  ladies  in  the  straw,  “as  wTel] 
as  can  be  expected.”  In  fact,  if  I  dared  to  say  the 
real  and  simple  truth  (it  must  not  be  forgotten  thaS 
hitherto  I  thought,  to  satisfy  ttie  theories  of  medical 
men,  1  ought  to  be  ill),  I  was  never  better  in  my  life 
than  ax  tne  spring  of  1812;  ana  I  hope  sincerely,  that 
we  quantity  of  claret,  port,  or  particular  Madeira  * 


90 


CONFESSIONS  OF 


tfiich,  in  all  probability,  you,  good  reader,  ha\e  taicen 
and  design  to  take,  for  every  term  of  eight  years,  during 
your  natural  life,  may  as  little  disorder  your  health  as 
mine  was  disordered  by  opium  I  had  taken  for  the 
eight  years  between  1S04  and  1812.  Hence  you  may 
see  again  the  danger  of  taking  any  medical  advice 
"rom  Anastasius  ;29  in  divinity,  for  aught  I  know,  or  law, 
he  may  be  a  safe  counsellor,  but  not  in  medicine. 
No ;  it  is  far  better  to  consult  Dr.  Buchan,  as  I  did ;  for 
1  never  forgot  that  worthy  man’s  excellent  suggestion, 
and  I  was  “  particularly  careful  not  to  take  above  five- 
and-twenty  ounces  of  laudanum.”  To  this  moderation 
and  temperate  use  of  the  article  I  may  ascribe  it,  1 
suppose,  that  as  yet,  at  least  (that  is,  in  1812),  I  am 
ignorant  and  unsuspicious  of  the  avenging  terrors  which 
opium  has  in  store  for  those  who  abuse  its  lenity.  At 
the  same  time,  I  have  been  only  a  dilettante  eater  ol 
>pium ;  eight  years’  practice,  even,  with  the  single  pre 
caution  of  allowing  sufficient  intervals  between  ever} 
indulgence,  has  not  been  sufficient  to  make  opium 
necessary  to  me  as  an  article  of  daily  diet.  But  now 
comes  a  different  era.  Move  on,  if  you  please,  reader, 
to  1813.  In  the  summer  of  the  year  we  have  just 
quitted,  I  had  suffered  much  in  bodily  health  from  dis» 
‘ress  of  mi^d  connected  with  a  very  melancholy  ercnt 
This  event,  being  no  ways  related  to  the  subject  now 
before  me,  further  than  through  bodily  illness  which  li 
produced,  I  need  not  more  particularly  notice.  Whethei 
this  illness  of  1812  had  any  share  in  that  of  1813,  1 
*now  not ;  but  so  it  was,  that,  in  the  latter  year,  I  wa* 
attacked  oy  a  most  appalling  irritation  of  the  stomach 
ji  all  respects  the  same  as  that  which  had  caused  me 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


87 


30  much  suffering  in  youth,  and  accompanied  by  a  re< 
rival  of  all  the  old  dreams.  This  is  the  point  of  my 
narrative  on  which,  as  respects  my  own  self-justification 
the  whole  of  what  follows  may  be  said  to  hinge.  Ann 
Here  I  find  myself  in  a  perplexing  dilemma: — Either, 
on  the  one  hand,  I  must  exhaust  the  reader’s  patience,, 
by  such  a  detail  of  my  malady,  and  of  my  struggles 
with  it,  as  might  suffice  to  establish  the  fact  of  my 
inability  to  wrestle  any  longer  with  irritation  and  con 
stant  suffering;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  by  passing  lightly 
over  this  critical  part  of  my  story  I  must  forego  the 
benefit  of  a  stronger  impression  eft  on  the  mind  of 
the  reader,  and  must  lay  myseit  open  to  the  miscon¬ 
struction  of  having  slipped  by  the  easy  and  gradual 
steps  of  self-indulging  persons,  from  the  first  to  the 
filial  stage  of  opium-eating  (a  misconstruction  to  which 
there  will  be  a  lurking  predisposition  in  most  readers., 
from  my  previous  acknowledgments).  This  is  the 
dilemma,  the  first  horn  of  which  would  be  sufficient  to 
loss  and  gore  any  column  of  patient  readers,  though 
drawn  up  sixteen  deep,  and  constantly  relieved  by  fresh 
men ;  consequently  that  is  not  to  be  thought  of.  It 
»omains,  then,  that  I  postulate  so  much  as  is  necessary 
for  my  purpose.  And  let  me  take  as  full  credit  for 
what  I  postulate  as  if  I  had  demonstrated  it,  good  reader, 
at  the  expense  of  your  patience  and  my  own.  Be  not 
so  ungenerous  as  to  let  me  suffer  in  your  good  opinion 
through  my  own  forbearance  and  regard  for  youi 
comfort.  No  ,  believe  all  that  I  ask  uf  you,  namely,  that 
r  could  resist  no  longer,  —  believe  it  liberally,  and  as 
*n  act  of  grace,  or  else  in  mere  orudence ;  for.  if  not 
ihen,  in  the  next  edition  of  my  Opium  Confessions 


3S 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


revised  and  enlarged,  I  will  make  you  believe,  and  treia- 
61e ;  and,  a  force  d'ennuyer ,  by  mere  dint  of  pandicula* 
tion,  I  will  terrify  all  readers  of  mine  from  ever  again 
questioning  any  postulate  that  I  shall  think  lit  to  ma  re. 

This,  then,  let  me  repeat :  I  postulate  that,  at  the  time 
I  began  to  take  opium  daily,  I  could  not  have  done 
otherwise.  Whether,  indeed,  afterwards,  I  might  not 
have  succeeded  in  breaking  off  the  habit,  even  when 
it  seemed  to  me  that  all  efforts  would  be  unavailing, 
and  whether  many  of  the  innumerable  efforts  which  I 
did  make  might  not  have  been  carried  much  further, 
pnd  my  gradual  re-conquests  of  ground  lost  might  not 
have  been  followed  up  much  more  energetically,  —  these 
are  questions  which  I  must  decline.  Perhaps  I  might 
make  out  a  case  of  palliation  ;  but  —  shall  I  speak  ingen¬ 
uously  ?  —  I  confess  it,  as  a  besetting  infirmity  of  mine, 
that  I  am  too  much  of  an  Eudaemonist;  I  hanker  too 
much  after  a  state  of  happiness,  both  for  myself  and 
others;  I  cannot  face  misery,  whether  my  own  or  not, 
with  an  eye  of  sufficient  firmness ;  and  am  little  capa¬ 
ble  of  encountering  present  pain  for  the  sake  of  any 
reversionary  benefit.  On  some  other  matters,  I  carj 
xgree  with  the  gentlemen  in  the  cotton  traded  at  Man¬ 
chester  in  affecting  the  Stoic  philosophy ;  but  not  iii 
this.  Here  I  take  the  liberty  of  an  Eclectic  philosopher, 
and  I  look  out  for  some  courteous  and  considerate  sect 
that  will  condescend  more  to  the  irffirm  condition  of  an 

*  A  handsome  news-room,  of  which  I  was  very  politely  made 
Vee  in  passing  through  Man^ester,  by  several  gentlemen  of  tiiai 
place,  is  called,  I  think  The  Porch  ;  whence  I,  who  am  a  stranger 
n  Manchester,  inferre  1  that  the  subscribers  meant  to  profes 
inemselves  followers  of  Zeno.  But  I  have  been  since  assured  that 
rus  is  a  mistake 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


89 


spium-eatei ;  that  are  “sweet  men,”  as  Chaucer  Jays, 
“  to  give  absolution,”  and  will  show  some  conscience 
in  the  penances  they  inflict,  and  the  efforts  of  absti¬ 
nence  they  exact  from  poor  sinners  like  myself.  An 
inhuman  moralist  1  can  no  more  endure,  in  my  nervcus 
state,  than  opium  that  has  not  been  boiled.  At  ary 
*ate,  he  who  summons  me  to  send  out  a  large  freight 
of  self-denial  and  mortification  upon  any  cruising  voyage 
of  moral  improvement,  must  make  it  clear  to  my  under¬ 
standing  that  the  concern  is  a  hopeful  one.  At  my 
time  of  life  (six-and-thirty  years  of  age),  it  cannot  ba 
supposed  that  I  have  much  energy  to  spare  ;  in  fact,  1 
find  it  all  little  enough  for  the  intellectual  labors  I  have 
on  my  hands ;  and,  therefore,  let  no  man  expect  to 
frighten  me  by  a  few  hard  words  into  embarking  any 
part  of  it  upon  desperate  adventures  of  morality. 

Whether  desperate  or  not,  however,  the  issue  of  the 
struggle  in  1813  was  what  I  have  mentioned ;  and  from 
this  date  the  reader  is  to  consider  me  as  a  regular  and 
confirmed  opium-eater,  of  whom  to  ask  whether  on  any 
particular  day  he  had  or  had  not  taken  opium,  would 
be  to  ask  whether  his  lungs  had  performed  respiration 
or  the  heart  fulfilled  its  functions.  You  understand 
now,  reader,  what  I  am  ;  and  you  are  by  this  time 
aware,  that  no  old  gentleman,  “  with  a  snow-white 
beard,”  will  have  any  chance  of  persuading  me  to  sur¬ 
render  “  the  little  golden  receptacle  of  the  pernicious 
drug.”  No  •  I  give  notice  to  all,  whether  moralists  oi 
bu  geons,  that  whatever  be  their  pretensions  and  skill  in 
their  respective  lines  of  practice,  they  must  not  hope  for 
*ny  countenance  from  me,  if  tney  think  to  begin  by 
iny  s-  vuge  proposition  for  a  Lent  or  Ramadam  of  aheti 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


nence  from  opium.  This,  then,  being  all  fully  under 
stood  between  us,  we  shall  in  future  sail  before  the  wind 
Now,  then,  reader,  from  1S13,  where  all  this  time  we 
have  been  sitting  down  and  loitering,  rise  up,  if  you 
please,  and  walk  forward  about  three  years  mere.  Now 
draw  up  the  curtain,  and  you  shall  see  me  in  a  new 
character. 

If  any  man,  poor  or  rich,  were  to  say  that  he  would 
teil  us  what  had  been  the  happiest  day  in  his  life,  and 
the  why  and  the  wherefore,  I  suppose  that  we  should  all 
cry  out,  Hear  him!  hear  him!  As  to  the  happiest 
day,  that  must  be  very  difficult  for  any  wise  man  to 
name ;  because  any  event,  that  could  occupy  so  dis¬ 
tinguished  a  place  in  a  man’s  retrospect  of  his  life,  or 
be  entitled  to  have  shed  a  special  felicity  on  any  one 
day,  ought  to  be  of  such  an  enduring  character,  as  that 
(accidents  apart)  it  should  have  continued  to  shed  the 
same  felicity,  or  one  not  distinguishably  less,  on  many 
years  together.  To  the  happiest  lustrum,  however,  or 
even  to  the  happiest  year,  it  may  be  allowed  to  any  man 
to  point  without  discountenance  from  wdsdom.  This 
year,  in  my  case,  reader,  was  the  one  which  we  have 
now  reached ;  though  it  stood,  I  confess,  as  a  parenthe- 
bis  between  years  of  a  gloomier  character.  It  was  a 
year  of  brilliant  water  (to  speak  after  the  manner  of 
jewellers),  set,  as  it  were,  and  insulated,  in  the  gloom 
and  cloudy  melancholy  of  opium.  Strange  as  it  may 
Bound,  I  had  a  little  before  this  time  descended  sud« 
denly,  and  without  any  considerable  effort,  from  three  hum 
bred  and  twenty  grains  of  opium  (that  is,  eighth  thou* 


*  I  here  reckon  twenty-five  drops  of  laudanum  as  equivalent  U 
Bso  grain  of  opium,  which,  J  believe,  is  the  common  estimate 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER 


land  drops  of  laudanum)  per  day,  to  forty  grains,  oi 
ont*€ighth  part.  Instantaneously,  and  as  if  by  magic, 
the  cloud  of  profoundest  melancholy  which  rested  upon 
my  brain,  like  some  black  vapors  that  I  have  seen  roll 
away  from  the  summits  of  mountains,  drew  off  in  one 
day;  passed  off  with  its  murky  banners  as  simultane¬ 
ously  as  a  ship  that  has  been  stranded,  and  is  floated  off 
by  a  spring  tide,  — 

That  moveth  altogether,  if  it  move  at  all. 

Now,  then,  I  was  again  happy :  I  now  took  only  ons 
thousand  drops  of  laudanum  per  day,  —  and  what  was 
that  ?  A  latter  spring  had  come  to  close  up  the  season 
of  youth :  my  brain  performed  its  functions  as  healthily 
as  ever  before.  I  read  Kant  again,  and  again  I  under 
stood  him,  or  fancied  that  I  did.  Again  my  feelings  of 
pleasure  expanded  themselves  to  all  around  me ;  and,  if 
any  man  from  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  or  from  neither, 
had  been  announced  to  me  in  my  unpretending  cottage, 
L  should  have  welcomed  him  with  as  sumptuous  a 
reception  as  so  poor  a  man  could  offer.  Whatever 
else  was  wanting  to  a  wise  man’s  happiness,  of  lauda^ 
num  I  would  have  given  him  as  much  as  he  wished, 
and  in  a  golden  cup.  And,  by  the  way,  now  that  I 
speak  of  giving  laudanum  away,  I  remember,  about 
this  time,  a  little  incident,  which  I  mention,  because, 

However,  as  both  maybe  considered  variable  quantities  (the  crud'3 
opium  varying  much  in  strength,  and  the  tincture  still  more),  1 
suppose  that  no  infinitesimal  accuracy  can  be  had  in  such  a  cal 
calation.  Tea-spoons  vary  as  much  in  size  as  opium  in  strength 
Smal.  ones  hold  ah  mt  one  hundred  droos  :  so  that  eight  thousand 
drops  are  about  eighty  times  a  tea-spoonfui.  The  readei  sees  how 
much  I  kept  within  Dr.  Buchan’s  indulgen.  allowance. 


92 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


iri  fling  as  .t  was,  the  reader  will  soon  meet  it  again  in 
my  dreams,  which  it  influenced  more  fearfully  than 
could  be  imagined.  One  day  a  Malay  knocked  at  rny 
door.  What  business  a  Malay  could  have  to  transact 
amongst  English  mountains,  I  cannot  conjecture ;  but 
possibly  he  was  on  his  road  to  a  seaport  about  foity 
miles  distant.30 

The  servant  who  opened  the  door  to  him  was  a 
young  girl,  born  and  bred  amongst  the  mountains,  who 
had  never  seen  an  Asiatic  dress  of  any  sort:  his  turban 
therefore,  confounded  her  not  a  little ;  and  as  it  turned 
out  that  his  attainments  in  English  were  exactly  of  the 
same  extent  as  hers  in  the  Malay,  there  seemed  to  be 
an  impassable  gulf  fixed  between  all  communication  of 
ideas,  if  either  party  had  happened  to  possess  any.  In 
this  dilemma,  the  girl,  recollecting  the  reputed  learning 
of  her  master  (and,  doubtless,  giving  me  credit  for  a 
Knowledge  of  all  the  languages  of  the  earth,  besides 
perhaps,  a  few  of  the  lunar  ones),  came  and  gave  me 
to  understand  that  there  was  a  sort  of  demon  below 
whom  she  clearly  imagined  that  my  art  could  exorcise 
from  the  house.  I  did  not  immediately  go  down ;  but 
when  I  did,  the  group  which  presented  itself,  arranged 
as  it  was  by  accident,  though  not  very  elaborate,  took 
hold  of  my  fancy  and  my  eye  in  a  way  that  none  of 
the  statuesque  attitudes  exhibited  in  the  ballets  at  the 
opera-house,  though  so  ostentatiously  complex,  had 
ever  done.  In  a  cottage  kitchen,  but  panelled  on 
the  wall  with  dark  wood,  that  from  age  and  rubbing 
resembled  oak,  and  looking  more  like  a  rustic  nail  of 
entrance  than  a  kitchen,  stood  the  Malay,  his  turbar; 
rad  loose  trousers  of  dingy  white  relieved  upon  th< 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


93 


dark  panelling;  he  had  placed  himself  nearer  to  thy 
girl  than  she  seemed  to  relish,  though  her  native  spirit 
of  mountain  intrepidity  contended  with  the  feeling  of 
simple  awe  which  her  countenance  expressed,  as  she 
gazed  upon  the  tiger-cat  before  her.  And  a  more 
striking  picture  there  could  not  be  imagined,  than  the 
beautiful  English  face  of  the  girl,31  and  its  exquisite 
fairness,  together  with  her  erect  and  independent  atti¬ 
tude,  contrasted  with  the  sallow  and  bilious  skin  of  the 
Malay,  enamelled  or  veneered  with  mahogany  by 
marine  air,  his  small,  fierce,  restless  eyes,  thin  lips, 
slavish  gestures,  and  adorations.  Half  hidden  by  the 
ferocious-looking  Malay,  was  a  little  child  from  n 
neighboring  cottage,  who  had  crept  in  after  him,  and 
was  now  in  the  act  of  reverting  its  head  and  gazing 
upwards  at  the  turban  and  the  fiery  eyes  beneath  it, 
whilst  with  one  hand  he  caught  at  the  dress  of  the 
young  woman  for  protection. 

My  knowledge  of  the  Oriental  tongues  is  not  remark¬ 
ably  extensive,  being,  indeed,  confined  to  two  words,— 
the  Arabic  word  for  barley,  and  the  Turkish  for  opium 
(madjoon),  which  I  have  learnt  from  Anastasius.  And, 
as  I  had  neither  a  Malay  dictionary,  nor  even  Ade* 
lung’s  Mithridates,  which  might  have  helped  me  to  a 
few  words,  I  addressed  him  in  some  lines  from  the 
Iliad ;  considering  that,  of  su^h  language  as  I  pos¬ 
sessed,  the  Greek,  in  point  of  longitude,  came  geo¬ 
graphically  nearest  to  an  Oriental  one.  He  worshipped 
me  in  a  devout  manner,  and  replied  in  what  I  suppose 
was  Malay.  In  this  way  I  saved  my  reputation  with 
ffiy  neighbors  ;  for  the  Malay  had  no  means  of  betray¬ 
ing  the  secret  He  lay  down  upon  the  floor  for  about  a* 


94 


CONFESSIONS  OF  Alt 


hour,  and  then  pursued  his  journey.  On  his  departure 
[  presented  him  with  a  piece  of  opium.  To  him,  as  an 
Orientalist,  I  concluded  that  opium  must  be  familiar 
and  the  expression  of  his  face  convinced  me  that  it  was. 
Nevertheless,  I  was  struck  with  some  little  consterna¬ 
tion  when  I  saw  him  suddenly  raise  his  hand  to  hia 
mouth,  and  (in  the  school-boy  phrase)  bolt  the  whole, 
divided  into  three  pieces,  at  one  mouthful.  The  quan¬ 
tity  was  enough  to  kill  three  dragoons  and  their  horses, 
and  I  felt  some  alarm  for  the  poor  creature ;  but  what 
could  be  done?  I  had  given  him  the  opium  in  com¬ 
passion  for  his  solitary  life,  on  recollecting  that,  if  he 
had  travelled  on  foot  from  London,  it  must  be  nearly 
three  weeks  since  he  could  have  exchanged  a  thought 
with  any  human  being.  I  could  not  think  of  violating 
the  laws  of  hospitality  by  having  him  seized  and 
drenched  with  an  emetic,  and  thus  frightening  him  into 
a  notion  that  we  were  going  to  sacrifice  him  to  some 
English  idol.  No;  there  was  clearly  no  help  for  it. 
He  took  his  leave,  and  for  some  d^s  I  felt  anxious; 
but,  as  I  never  heard  of  any  Malay  being  found  dead,  I 
became  convinced  that  he  was  used^  to  opium,  and 

*  This,  however,  is  not  a  necessary  conclusion  ;  the  varieties  of 
effect  produced  by  opium  on  different  constitutions  are  infinite.  A 
London  magistrate  (Harriott’s  “  Struggles  through  Life,”  vol.  iii., 
p.  391,  third  edition)  has  recorded  that  on  the  first  occasion  of  his 
trying  laudanum  for  the  gout,  he  took  forty  drops  ;  the  next  night 
sixty,  and  on  the  fifth  night  eighty,  without  any  effect  whatever  ; 
and  this  at  an  advanced  age.  I  have  an  anecdote  from  a  country 
Burgeon,  however,  which  sinks  Mr.  Harriott’s  case  into  a  trifle 
r.l,  in  my  projected  medical  treatise  on  opium,  which  I  will  pub 
lish  provided  the  College  of  Surgeons  will  pay  me  for  enlightening 
theii  benighted  understandings  upon  this  subject,  I  will  relate  i”, 
but  it  is  fai  too  good  a  story  U  be  published  gratis. 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


95 


that  I  must  have  done  him  the  service  I  designed,  bj 
giving  him  one  night  of  respite  from  the  pains  of 
wandering. 

This  incident  I  have  digressed  to  mention,  because 
this  Malay  (partly  from  the  picturesque  exhibition  he 
assisted  to  frame,  partly  from  the  anxiety  I  connected 
with  his  image  for  some  days)  fastened  afterwards  upon 
my  dreams,  and  brought  other  Malays  with  him  worse 
than  himself,  that  ran  “  a-muck  ”  *  at  me,  and  led  me 
into  a  world  of  troubles.  But,  to  quit  this  episode,  and 
to  return  to  my  intercalary  year  of  happiness.  I  have 
said  already,  that  on  a  subject  so  important  to  us  all  as 
happiness,  we  should  listen  with  pleasure  to  any  man  3 
experience  or  experiments,  even  though  he  were  but  a 
ploughboy,  who  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  ploughed 
very  deep  in  such  an  intractable  soil  as  that  of  humar 
pains  and  pleasures,  or  to  have  conducted  his  researche 
upon  any  very  enlightened  principles.  But  I,  who  hav 
taken  happiness,  both  in  a  solid  and  a  liquid  shape,  both 
boiled  and  unboiled,  both  East  India  and  Turkey,  - 
who  have  conducted  my  experiments  upon  this  intei* 
esting  subject  with  a  sort  of  galvanic  battery,  —  and 
have,  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  world,  inoculated 
myself,  as  it  were,  with  the  poison  of  eight  hundred 
drops  of  laudanum  per  day  (just  for  the  same  reason 
rs  a  French  surgeon  inoculated  himself  lately  with  a1 
cancer,  —  an  English  one,  twenty  years  ago,  with 
plague,  —  and  a  third,  I  know  not  of  what  nation,  w.th 

hydrophobia),  —  I,  it  wiL  be  admitted,  must  surely 

_  _ „ _ . _ _  •« 

*  See  the  common  accounts  in  an  ••  Eastern  traveller  or  voyager 
af  the  frantic  excesses  committed  by  Malays  who  have  takii 
*pimn,  or  are  reduced  tc  desperation  by  ill  luck  at  gambling 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


ffi 

know  what  happiness  is,  if  anybody  does.  And  there' 
fore  I  will  here  lay  down  an  analysis  of  happiness 
and,  as  the  most  interesting  mode  cf  communicating 
it,  I  will  give  it,  not  didactically,  but  wrapt  up  and 
involved  in  a  picture  of  one  evening,  as  I  spent  every 
evening  during  the  intercalary  year  when  laudanum, 
tnough  taken  daily,  was  to  me  no  more  than  the  elixir 
of  pleasure.  This  done,  I  shall  quit  the  subject  of  hap¬ 
piness  altogether,  and  pass  to  a  very  different  one,— 
the  pains  of  opium . 

Let  there  be  a  cottage,  standing  in  a  valley,32  eighteen 
miles  from  any  town ;  no  spacious  valley,  but  about 
two  miles  long  by  three  quarters  of  a  mile  in  average 
width,  —  the  benefit  of  which  provision  is,  that  all  the 
families  resident  within  its  circuit  will  compose,  as  it 
were,  one  larger  household,  personally  familiar  to  your 
eye,  and  more  or  less  interesting  to  your  affections. 
Let  the  mountains  be  real  mountains,  between  three  and 
four  thousand  feet  high,  and  the  cottage  a  real  cottage, 
not  (as  a  witty  author  has  it)  “  a  cottage  with  a  double 
coach-house ;  ”  let  it  be,  in  fact  (for  I  must  abide  Dy 
the  actual  scene),  a  white  cottage,  embowered  with 
flowering  shrubs,  so  chosen  as  to  unfold  a  succession  of 
flowrers  upon  the  walls,  and  clustering  around  the  win 
dows,  through  all  the  months  of  spring,  summer,  and 
autumn  ;  beginning,  in  fact,  with  May  roses,  and  ending 
with  jasmine.  Let  it,  however,  not  be  spring,  noi 
summer,  nor  autumn;  but  winter,  in  its  sternest  shape 
This  is  a  most  important  point  in  the  science  of  happi 
**3S3.  And  I  am  surprised  to  see  people  overlook  it 
and  think  it  matter  of  congratulation  that  winter  is 
gping,  or,  if  coming,  is  not  likely  to  be  a  severe  one 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER  &  i 

3n  the  contrary,  I  put  up  a  petition,  annually,  foi  a? 
much  snow,  hail,  frost,  or  storm  of  one  kind  or  other 
as  the  skies  can  possibly  afford  us.  Surely  everybody 
is  aware  of  the  divine  pleasures  which  attend  a  wintei 
fireside,  —  candles  at  four  o’clock,  warm  hearth-rugs, 
tea,  a  fair  tea-maker,  shutters  closed,  curtains  flowing  in 
ample  draperies  on  the  floor,  whilst  the  wind  and  raia 
are  raging  audibly  without, 

And  at  the  doors  and  windows  seem  to  call 

As  heaven  and  earth  they  would  together  mell ; 

Yet  the  least  entrance  find  they  none  at  all  ; 

Whence  sweeter  grows  our  rest  secure  in  massy  hall. 

Castle  of  Indolence. 

All  these  are  items  in  the  description  of  a  winter 
evening  which  must  surely  be  familiar  to  everybody 
born  in  a  high  latitude.  And  it  is  evident  that  most  of 
these  delicacies,  like  ice-cream,  require  a  very  low 
temperature  of  the  atmosphere  to  produce  them :  they 
are  fruits  which  cannot  be  ripened  without  weather 
stormy  or  inclement,  in  some  way  or  other.  I  am  not 
“particular ,”  as  people  say,  whether  it  be  snow,  or 

black  frost,  or  wind  so  strong  that  (as  Mr. - 33  says) 

(t  you  may  lean  your  back  against  it  like  a  post.”  I 
can  put  up  even  with  rain,  provided  that  it  rains  cats 
and  dogs;  but  something  of  the  sort  I  must  have;  and 
if  I  have  not,  I  think  myself  in  a  manner  ill  used :  for 
why  am  I  called  on  to  pay  so  heavily  for  winter,  in 
seals,  and  candles,  and  various  privations  that  will  occur 
t*ven  to  gentlemen,  if  I  am  not  to  have  the  article  good 
r,f  it?  kind?  No:  a  Canadian  winter,  for  my  money ; 
*r  a  Russian  one,  where  every  man  is  out  a  co-proprie- 
or  with  the  north  wind  in  die  fee-simple  of  his  own 

7 


98 


CONILSSIONS  OF  AN 


ears.  Indeed,  so  great  an  epicure  am  I  in  this  mattei 
that  l  cannot  relish  a  winter  night  fully,  if  it  be  much 
past  St.  Thomas’  day,  and  have  degenerated  into  dis 
gusting  tendencies  to  vernal  appearances;  —  no.  it  must 
be  divided  by  a  thick  wall  of  dark  nights  from  all  return 
of  light  and  sunshine.  From  the  latter  weeks  of  October 
to  Christmas-eve,  therefore,  is  the  period  during  whirh 
happiness  is  in  season,  which,  in  my  judgment,  enters  "he 
ruum  with  the  tea-tray;  for  tea,  though  ridiculed  by 
those  who  are  naturally  of  coarse  nerves,  or  are  become 
bo  from  wine-drinking,  and  are  not  susceptible  of  influ¬ 
ence  from  so  refined  a  stimulant,  will  always  be  the 
favorite  beverage  of  the  intellectual ;  and,  for  my  part., 
I  would  have  joined  Dr.  Johnson  in  a  helium  interned * 
num  against  Jonas  Hanway,  or  any  other  impious  person 
who  should  presume  to  disparage  it.  But  here,  to  save 
myself  the  trouble  of  too  much  verbal  description,  I  will 
introduce  a  painter,  and  give  him  directions  for  the  rest 
of  the  picture.  Painters  do  not  like  white  cottages 
unless  a  good  deal  weather-stained ;  but,  as  the  readei 
now  understands  that  it  is  a  winter  night,  his  services 
will  not  be  required  except  for  the  inside  of  the  house 
Paint  me,  then,  a  room  seventeen  feet  by  twelve 
*.nd  net  more  than  seven  and  a  half  feet  high.  This 
reader,  is  somewhat  ambitiously  styled,  in  my  family 
the  drawing-room;  but  being  contrived  “a  double  debt 
to  pay,”  it  is  also,  and  more  justly,  termed  the  library 
for  it  happens  that  books  are  the  only  article  of  property 
ji  which  I  am  richer  than  my  neighbors.  OPthese  1 
nave  about  five  thousand,  collected  gradually  since  my 
eighteenth  year.  Therefore,  painter,  put  as  many  at 
ycu  can  h  to  t!  *.s  room.  Make  it  populous  with  books 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


3hd,  furthermore,  paint  me  a  good  fire ;  and  furniture 
olain  and  modest,  befitting  the  unpretending  cottage  of 
Ei  scholar.  And  near  the  (ire  paint  me  a  tea-table ;  and 
{as  it  is  clear  that  no  creature  can  come  to  see  one, 
such  a  stormy  night)  place  only  two  cups  and  saucers 
an  the  tea-tray  ;  and,  if  you  know  how  to  paint  such  a 
thing  symbolically,  or  otherwise,  paint  me  an  eternal 
tea-pot,  —  eternal  a  parte  ante ,  and  a  parte  post  ;  for 
I  usually  drink  tea  from  eight  o’clock  at  night  to  four 
in  the  morning.  And,  as  it  is  very  unpleasant  to  make 
tea,  or  to  pour  it  out  for  one’s  self,  paint  me  a  lovely 
young  woman,  sitting  at  the  table.  Paint  her  arms  like 
Aurora’s,  and  her  smiles  like  Hebe’s  ;  —  but  no,  dea* 
M.,  not  even  in  jest  let  me  insinuate  that  thy  power  to 
illuminate  my  cottage  rests  upon  a  tenure  so  perishable 
as  mere  personal  beauty ;  or  that  the  witchcraft  of 
angelic  smiles  lies  within  the  empire  of  any  earthly 
pencil.  Pass,  then,  my  good  painter,  to  something 
more  within  its  power ;  and  the  next  article  brought 
forward  should  naturally  be  myself,  —  a  picture  of  the 
Opium-eater,  with  his  “  little  golden  receptacle  of  the 
pernicious  drug”  lying  beside  him  on  the  table.  As  to 
the  opium,  I  have  no  objection  to  see  a  picture  of  that, 
though  I  would  rather  see  the,  original;  you  may  paint 
,t,  if  you  choose ;  but  I  apprize  you  that  no  “  little  ” 
receptacle  would,  even  in  1816  answer  my  purpose, 
who  was  at  a  distance  from  the  “  stately  Pantheon,”  and 
til  druggists  (mortal  or  otherwise).  No:  you  may 
&s  well  paint  the  rea.  receptacle,  which  was  not  of 
gold,  but  of  glass,  and  as  much  hke  a  wine-decanter  as 
possible.  Into  this  you  may  put  a  quart  of  ruby-colored 
nudanum  •  that,  and  a  book  of  German  metaphysics 


I  )0  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OriUM-EATEtt. 

placed  by  its  side,  will  sufficiently  attest  my  being  w 
the  neighborhood ;  but  as  to  myself,  there  I  demur.  1 
admit  that,  naturally,  I  ought  to  occupy  the  foreground 
df  the  picture  ;  that  being  the  hero  of  the  piece,  or  (if 
you  choose)  the  criminal  at  the  bar,  mj^  body  should  be 
had  into  court.  This  seems  reasonable  ;  but  why  should 
I  confess,  on  this  point,  to  a  painter  ?  or,  why  confess  at 
all?  If  the  public  (into  whose  private  earl  am  confi* 
dentially  whispering  my  confessions,  and  not  into  any 
painter’s)  should  chance  to  Lave  framed  some  agreeable 
picture  for  itself  of  the  Opium-eater’s  exterior,  —  should 
have  ascribed  to  him,  romantically,  an  elegant  person, 
or  a  handsome  face,  why  should  I  tarbarously  tear 
from  it  so  pleasing  a  delusion,  —  pleasing  both  to  the 
public  and  to  me  ?  No :  paint  me,  if  at  all,  according 
to  your  own  fancy;  and,  as  a  painter’s  fancy  should 
teem  with  beautiful  creations,  I  cannot  fail,  in  that  way, 
to  be  a  gainer.  And  now,  reader,  we  have  run  through 
all  the  ten  categories  of  my  condition,  as  it  stood  about 
'816 — 1817,  up  to  the  middle  of  which  latter  year 
i  judge  myself  to  have  been  a  happy  man ;  and  the 
elements  of  that  happiness  I  have  endeavored  to  place 
before  you,  in  the  above  sketch  of  the  interior  of  a 
icholar’s  library,  —  in  a  cottage  among  the  mountains, 
in  a  stormy  winter  evening. 

But  now  farewell,  a  long  farewell,  to  happiness, 
winter  or  summer!  farewell  to  smiles  and  laughter, 
farewell  to  peace  of  mind !  farewell  to  hope  and  to 
tranquil  dreams,  and  to  the  blessed  consolations  oi 
deep  !  For  more  than  three  years  and  a  half  I  am 
tummoned  away  from  these ;  I  am  now  arrived  at  as 
Iliad  cf  woes :  for  I  hav«  now  to  lecord 


THE  PAINS  OP  OPIUM. 


- as  when  some  great  painter  clips 

Hi«  pencil  in  the  gloom  of  earthquake  and  eclipse. 

Shelley's  Revolt  of  Isi&xn. 

Reader,  who  have  thus  far  accompanied  me,  I  mu:t 
request  your  attention  to  a  brief  explanatory  note  on 
three  points : 

1.  For  several  reasons,  I  have  not  been  able  to  com¬ 
pose  the  notes  for  this  part  of  my  narrative  into  any 
regular  and  connected  shape.  I  give  the  notes  dis¬ 
jointed  as  I  find  them,  or  have  now  drawn  them  up 
from  memory.  Some  of  them  point  to  their  own  date ; 
some  I  have  dated ;  and  some  are  undated.  Whenever 
it  could  answer  my  purpose  to  transplant  them  from  the 
natural  or  chronological  order,  I  have  not  scrupled  to 
do  so.  Sometimes  I  speak  in  the  present,  sometimes 
in  the  past  tense.  Few  of  the  notes,  perhaps,  were 
‘rritten  exactly  at  the  period  of  time  to  which  they 
lekte;  but  this  can  little  affect  their  accuracy,  as  lee 
impressions  were  such  that  they  can  never  fade  from 
ny  mind.  Much  has  been  omitted  1  could  not, 
»dtnout  effort,  constrain  myself  to  the  task  of  eitnei 
«eu'!ing,  or  constructing  into  a  regular  narrative,  the 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


U)2  ' 

whole  burden  of  horrors  which  lies  upon  my  hraiu. 
This  feeling,  partly,  I  plead  in  excuse,  and  partly  that 
run  now  in  London,  and  am  a  helpless  sort  of  person 
who  cannot  even  arrange  his  own  papers  withou 
assistance;  and  I  am  separated  from  the  hand 
which  a*’*3  wont  to  perform  for  me  the  offWs  of  a£ 

i 

amanuensis. 

2.  You  will  think,  perhaps,  that  I  am  too  coniidentia. 
and  communicative  of  my  own  private  history.  It  may 
be  so.  But  my  way  of  writing  is  rather  to  think  aloud 
and  follow  my  own  humors,  than  much  to  consider  who 
is  listening  to  me;  and,  if  I  stop  to  consider  what  is 
proper  to  be  said  to  this  or  that  person,  I  shall  soon 
come  to  doubt  whether  any  part  at  all  is  proper.  The 
fact  is,  I  place  myself  at  a  distance  of  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ahead  of  this  time,  and  suppose  myself  writing  to 
those  who  will  be  interested  about  me  hereafter ;  and 
wishing  to  have  some  record  of  a  time,  the  entire 
nistory  of  which  no  one  can  know  but  myself,  I  do  it 
as  fully  as  I  am  able  with  the  efforts  I  am  now  capable 
of  making,  because  I  know  not  whether  1  can  ever  find 
time  to  do  it  again.34 

3.  It  will  occur  to  you  often  to  ask,  Why  did  I  not 
“elease  myself  from  the  horrors  of  opium,  by  leaving 
t  off,  or  diminishing  it?  To  this  I  must  answer  briefly; 
.  might  be  supposed  that  I  yielded  to  the  fascinations 
t>f  opium  too  easily;  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  any 
,110  n  can  be  charmed  by  its  terrors.  The  reader  may 
te  sure,  therefore,  that  I  made  attempts  innumerable  to 
*rduce  tne  quantity.  I  add,  that  those  who  witnessed 
die  agonies  of  those  attempts,  and  not  myself,  were  the 
first  to  beg  me  tc  desist.  But  could  not  I  have  reduce** 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


102 


it  a  drop  a  day,  or,  by  adding  water,  have  bisected  or 
trisected  a  drop  ?  A  thousand  drops  bisected  would 
thus  have  taken  nearly  six  years  to  reduce ;  and  that 
they  would  certainly  not  have  answered.  But  this  is 
a  common  mistake  of  those  who  know  nothing  of  opium 
experimentally ;  I  appeal  to  those  who  do,  whether  it  is 
not  always  found  that  down  to  a  certain  point  it  can  be 
reduced  with  ease,  and  even  pleasure,  but  that,  after  that 
point,  further  reduction  causes  intense  suffering.  Ye^, 
F.ay  many  thoughtless  persons,  who  know  not  what  they 
are  talking  of,  you  will  suffer  a  little  low  spirits  and 
dejection,  for  a  few  days.  I  answer,  no ;  there  is 
nothing  like  low  spirits ;  on  the  contrary,  the  mere 
animal  spirits  are  uncommonly  raised;  the  pulse  is 
improved;  the  health  is  better.  It  is  not  there  that  the 
suffering  lies.  It  has  no  resemblance  to  the  sufferings 
caused  by  renouncing  wine.  It  is  a  state  of  unutterable 
irritation  of  stomach  (which  surely  is  not  much  like 
dejection),  accompanied  by  intense  perspirations,  and 
feelings  such  as  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  without 
more  space  at  my  command. 

I  shall  now  enter  “in  medias  res,”  and  shall  anticipate, 
from  a  time  when  my  opium  pains  might  be  said  to  be 
it  their  acme ,  an  account  of  their  palsying  effects  on  the 
jitellectual  faculties. 

My  studies  have  now  been  long  interrupted.  can 
ttot  read  to  myself  with  any  pleasure,  hardly  with  a 
moment's  endurance.  Yet  I  read  aloud  sometimes  for 
die  pleasure  of  others  ;  because  '•ending  is  an  accorn 
plishment  of  mine,  and,  in  the  slang,  use  of  the  word 
zccoTTipl ishmgnt  as  a  superb  :»di  and  ornamental  attain 
Kient,  almost  the  ml}-  one  I  possess ;  and  formerly  il 


104 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


had  any  vanity  at  all  connected  with  any  endowment 
sr  attainment  of  mine,  it  was  with  this;  for  I  had 
observed  that  no  accomplishment  was  so  rare.  Players 

are  the  worst  readers  of  all:  - reads  vilely ; 35  and 

Mrs. - ,  who  is  so  celebrated,  can  read  nothing  -veil 

but  dramatic  compositions  ;  Milton  she  cannot  read  suf- 
ferably.  People  in  general  either  read  pcetry  without 
any  passion  at  all,  or  -else  overstep  the  modesty  of 
nature,  and  read  not  like  scholars.  Of  late,  if  I  have  felt 
moved  by  anything  in  books,  it  has  been  by  the  grand 
lamentations  of  Samson  Agonistes,  or  the  great  harmo¬ 
nies  of  the  Satanic  speeches  in  Paradise  Regained,  when 
read  aloud  by  myself.  A  young  lady  sometimes  comes 
and  drinks  tea  with  us  ;  at  her  request  and  M.’s,  I  now 

and  then  read  W - ’s  poems  to  them.  (W.,36  by  the 

by,  is  the  only  poet  I  ever  met  who  could  read  his  own 
verses;  often,  indeed,  he  reads  admirably.) 

For  nearly  two  years  I  believe  that  I  read  no  book 
but  one  ;  and  I  owe  it  to  the  author,  in  discharge  of  a 
great  debt  of  gratitude,  to  mention  what  that  was. 
The  sublimer  and  more  passionate  poets  I  still  read,  as 
I  have  said,  by  snatches,  and  occasionally.  But  my 
proper  vocation,  as  I  well  knew,  was  the  exercise  of 
the  analytic  understanding.  Now,  for  the  most  part, 
analytic  studies  are  continuous,  and  not  to  be  pursued 
by  fits  and  starts,  or  fragmentary  efforts.  Mathematics 
for  instance,  intellectual  philosophy,  &c.,  were  all  be 
come  insupportable  to  me ;  I  shrunk  from  them  with  a 
sense  of  powerless  and  infantine  feebleness  that  gave 
me  an  anguish  the  greater  from  remembering  the  tirna 
when  I  grappled  with  them  to  my  own  hourly  delight 
ind  for  this  further  reason,  because  I  had  devoted  thi 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER 


105 


abor  of  my  whole  life,  and  had  dedicated  my  intellect, 
blossoms  and  fruits,  to  the  slow  and  elaborate  toil  of 
constructing  one  single  work,  to  which  I  had  presumed 
to  give  the  title  of  an  unfinished  work  of  Spinosa’s, 
namely,  De  Emendatione  Hum  mil  Intellectiis.  This  was 
now  lying  locked  up  as  by  frost,  like  any  Spanish  bridge 
or  aqueduct,  begun  upon  too  great  a  scale  for  the 
resources  of  the  architect ;  and,  instead  of  surviving  me 
as  a  monument  of  wishes  at  least,  and  aspirations,  and 
a  life  of  labor  dedicated  to  the  exaltation  of  human 
nature  in  that  way  in  which  God  had  best  fitted  me  to 
promote  so  great  an  object,  it  was  likely  to  stand  a 
memorial  to  my  children  of  hopes  defeated,  of  baffled 
efforts,  of  materials  uselessly  accumulated,  of  founda¬ 
tions  laid  that  were  never  to  support  a  superstructure, 
of  the  grief  and  the  ruin  of  the  architect.  In  this 
fctate  of  imbecility,  I  had,  for  amusement,  turned  my 
attention  to  political  economy;  my  understanding, 
which  formerly  had  been  as  active  and  restless  as  a 
hyena,  could  not,  I  suppose  (so  long  as  I  lived  at  all), 
sink  into  utter  lethargy ;  and  political  economy  offers 
this  advantage  to  a  person  in  my  state,  that  though  it  is 
eminently  an  organic  science  (no  pari:,  that  is  to  say, 
but  what  acts  on  the  whole,  as  the  whole  again  reacts 
on  each  part),  yet  the  several  parts  may  be  detached 
and  contemplated  singly.  Great  as  was  the  prostration 
of  my  powers  at  this  time,  yet  T.  could  not  forget  my 
knowledge ;  and  my  understanding  had  been  for  too 
many  years  intimate  with  severe  thinkers,  with  logic 
*nd  the  great  masters  of  knowledge,  not  to  be  aware  o! 
the  utter  feebleness  of  the  ma..n  herd  of  modern  econo* 
osts.  1  had  been  led  in  1811  to  look  into  loads  oi 


106 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


oooks  and  pamphlets  on  many  branches  of  economy 
and,  at  my  desire,  M.  sometimes  read  to  me  chapters 
from  more  recent  works,  or  parts  of  parliamentary 
debates.  1  saw  that  these  were  generally  the  very  dregs 
and  rinsings  of  the  human  intellect;  and  that  any  man 
of  sound  head,  and  practised  in  wielding  logic  with  schol* * 
astic  adroitness,  might  take  up  the  whole  academy  of 
modern  economists,  and  throttle  them  between  heaven 
and  earth  with  his  finger  and  thumb,  or  bray  their 
fungous  heads  to  powder  with  a  lady’s  fan.  At  length, 
in  1819,  a  friend  in  Edinburgh  sent  me  down  Mr 
Ricardo’s  book ;  and,  recurring  to  my  own  prophetic 
anticipation  of  the  advent  of  some  legislator  for  this 
science,  I  said,  before  I  had  finished  the  first  chapter, 
'‘Thou  art  the  man!”  Wonder  and  curiosity  were 
emotions  that  had  long  been  dead  in  me.  Yet  I  worn 
dered  once  more  :  I.  wondered  at  myself  that  I  could 
once  again  be  stimulated  to  the  effort  of  reading;  and 
much  more  I  wondered  at  the  book.  Had  this  profound 
work  been  really  written  in  England  during  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century  ?  Was  it  possible  ?  I  supposed  think¬ 
ing^  had  been  extinct  in  England.  Could  it  be 
that  an  Englishman,  and  he  not  in  academic  bowers 
but  oppressed  by  mercantile  and  senatorial  cares,  had 
accomplished  what  all  the  universities  of  Europe,  and  a 
century  of  thought,  had  failed  even  to  advance  by  one 

*  The  reader  must  remember  what  I  here  mean  by  thinking 
because,  else,  this  would  be  a  very  presumptuous  expression. 
Eng1  and,  of  late,  Las  been  rich  to  excess  in  fine  thinkers,  in  th« 

*epartments  of  creative  and  combining  thought  ;  but  there  is  a  sad 
dearth  of  masculine  thinkers  in  any  analytic  path.  A  Scotchmag 
nf  eminent  name  has  lately  told  us,  that  he  is  obliged  to  gait  erej 
mathematics  ior  want  of  encouragement. 


fiNGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


m 

lair’s  breadth?  All  other  writers  had  been  crushed  and 
averlaid  by  the  enormous  weights  of  facts  and  docu¬ 
ments  ;  Mr.  Ricardo  had  deduced,  d  prion ,  from  the 
understanding  itself,  laws  which  first  gave  a  ray  of  light 
into  the  unwieldy  chaos  of  materials,  and  had  con¬ 
structed  what  had  been  but  a  collection  of  tentative  dis¬ 
cussions  into  a  science  of  regular  proportions,  now  fir^t 
standing  on  an  eternal  basis. 

Thus  did  one  simple  work  of  a  profound  understand¬ 
ing  avail  to  give  me  a  pleasure  and  an  activity  which 
I  had  not  known  for  years ;  —  it  roused  me  even  to 
write,  or,  at  least,  to  dictate  what  M.  wrote  for  me. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  some  important  truths  had  escaped 
even  “  the  inevitable  eye  ”  of  Mr.  Ricardo ;  and,  as 
these  were,  for  the  most  part,  of  such  a  nature  that  I 
could  express  or  illustrate  them  more  briefly  ani 
elegantly  by  algebraic  symbols  than  in  the  usual  clumsy 
and  loitering  diction  of  economists,  the  whole  would 
not  have  filled  a  pocket-book ;  and  being  so  brief,  with 
M.  for  my  amanuensis,  even  at  this  time,  incapable  as 
I  was  of  all  general  exertion,  I  drew  up  my  Prolego¬ 
mena  to  all  Future  Systems  of  Political  Economy  I 
hope  it  will  not  be  found  redolent  of  opium ;  though, 
indeed,  to  most  people,  the  subject  itself  is  a  sufficient 
opiate. 

This  exertion,  however,  was  but  a  temporary  flash, 
is  the  sequel  showed ;  for  I  designed  to  publish  my 
work.  Arrangements  were  made  at  a  provincial  press, 
about  eighteen  miles  distant,  for  printing  it.  An  addi¬ 
tional  compositor  was  retained  for  some  lays,  on  this 
.ccount.  The  work  was  even  twice  advertised ;  and 

was,  in  a  manner,  pledged  to  the  fulfilment  of  my 


*08 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


intention.  But  1  had  a  preface  to  write;  and  a  dedi¬ 
cation,  which  1  wished  to  make  a  splendid  one,  to  Mr, 
Ricardo.  I  found  myselt  quite  unable  to  accomplish 
all  this.  The  arrangements  were  countermanded,  the 
compositor  dismissed,  and  my  “prolegomena”  rested 
peacefully  by  the  side  of  its  elder  and  more  dignified 
brother. 

I  have  thus  described  and  illustrated  my  intellectual 
torpor,  in  terms  that  apply,  more  or  less,  to  every  pari 
of  the  four  years  during  which  I  was  under  the  Circean 
spells  of  opium.  But  for  miser}7  and  suffering,  I  might, 
indeed,  be  said  to  have  existed  in  a  dormant  state, 
seldom  could  prevail  on  myself  to  write  a  letter;  an 
answer  of  a  few  words,  to  any  that  I  received,  was 
the  utmost  that  I  could  accomplish ;  and  often  that  not 
until  the  letter  had  lain  weeks,  or  even  months,  on  my 
writing-table.  Without  the  aid  of  M.,  all  records  of 
bills  paid,  or  to  be  paid,  must  have  perished ;  and  my 
whole  domestic  economy,  whatever  became  of  Political 
Economy,  must  have  gone  into  irretrievable  confusion. 
I  shall  not  afterwards  allude  to  this  part  of  the  case ;  it 
is  one,  however,  which  the  opium-eater  will  find,  in  the 
end,  as  oppressive  and  tormenting  as  any  other,  from 
die  sense  of  incapacity  and  feebleness,  from  the  direct 
embarrassments  incident  to  the  neglect  or  procrasti¬ 
nation  of  each  day’s  appropriate  duties,  and  from  the 
remorse  which  must  often  exasperate  the  stings  of 
these  evils  to  a  reflective  and  conscientious  mind. 
The  opium-eater  loses  none  of  his  moral '  sensibilities 
or  aspirations;  he  wishes  and  longs  as  earnestly  as 
?ver  to  realize  what  he  believes  possible,  and  feels  tn 
*e  exacted  by  duty;  but  his  intellectual  apprehension 


FNGL1SH  OPIUM-EATER. 


109 


of  what  is  possible  infinitely  outruns  his  power,  not  of 
execution  only,  but  even  of  power  to  attempt.  He  lies 
under  the  weight  of  incubus  and  night-mare  ;  he  lies  m 
sight  of  all  that  he  would  fain  perform,  just  as  a  man 
forcihlj  confined  to  his  bed  by  the  mortal  languor  of  a 
relaxing  disease,  who  is  compelled  to  witness  injury  or 
outrage  offered  to  some  object  of  his  tenderest  love  :  ■— 
he  curses  the  spells  which  chain  him  down  from  motion; 
he  would  lay  down  his  life  if  he  might  but  get  up  and 
walk ;  but  he  is  powerless  as  an  infant,  and  cannot  even 
attempt  to  rise. 

I  now  pass  to  what  is  the  main  subject  of  these  latter 
confessions,  to  the  history  and  journal  of  what  took  place 
in  my  dreams  ;  for  these  were  the  immediate  and  prox¬ 
imate  cause  of  mv  acutest  suffering. 

The  first  notice  I  had  of  any  important  change  goin^ 
si  in  this  part  of  my  physical  economy,  was  from  the 
reawTking  of  a  state  of  eye  generally  incident  to 
H  ildhod,  or  exalted  states  of  irritability.  I  know  not 
whether  my  reader  is  aware  that  many  children,  per* 
naps  most,  have  a  power  of  painting,  as  it  were,  upon 
darkness,  all  sorts  of  phantoms:  in  some  that 
power  is  simply  a  mechanic  affection  of  the  eye  ; 
others  have  a  voluntary  or  semi-voluntary  power  to 
dismiss  or  summon  them ;  or,  as  a  child  once  said  to 
me,  when  I  questioned  him  on  this  matter,  “  I  can  tell 
them  to  go,  and  they  go ;  but  sometimes  they  come 
when  I  don’t  tell  them  to  come.”  Whereupon  I  told 
aim  that  he  had  almost  as  unlimited  a  command  over 
apparitions  as  a  Roman  centurion  over  his  soldiers, 
n  the  middle  of  1817,  I  think  it  was  that  this  faculty 
lecame  positively  distressing  to  me  :  at  night,  when  i 


10 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


zy.  awake  in  bod,  vast  processions  passed  along  ia 
mournful  pomp;  friezes  of  never-ending  stories,  that 
to  my  feelings  were  as  sad  and  solemn  as  if  they  were 
stories  drawn  from  times  before  CEdipus  or  Priam,  before 
Tyre,  before  Memphis.  And,  at  the  same  time,  a  cor¬ 
responding  change  took  place  in  my  dreams;  a  theatre 
Beemed  suddenly  opened  and  lighted  up  within  my  brain, 
which  presented,  nightly,  spectacles  of  more  than  earthly 
splendor.  And  the  four  following  facts  may  be  men 
tioned/  as  noticeable  at  this  time : 

I.  That,  as  the  creative  state  of  the  eye  increased,  a 
sympathy  seemed  to  arise  between  the  waking  and  the 
dreaming  states  of  the  brain  in  one  point,  —  tnat  what¬ 
soever  I  happened  to  call  up  and  to  trace  by  a  volun¬ 
tary  act  upon  the  darkness  was  very  apt  to  transfer 
itself  to  my  dreams  ;  so  that  I  feared  to  exercise  this 
faculty;  for,  as  Midas  turned  all  things  to  gold,  that 
yet  baffled  his  hopes  and  defrauded  his  human  desires, 
so  whatsoever  things  capable  of  being  visually  repre¬ 
sented  1  did  but  think  of  in  the  darkness,  immediately 
shaped  themselves  into  phantoms  of  the  eye;  and,  by  a 
process  apparently  no  less  inevitable.  when  thus  once 
traced  in  faint  and  visionary  colors,  like  writings  in  sym¬ 
pathetic  ink,  they  were  drawn  out,  by  the  fierce  chemis¬ 
try  of  my  dreams,  into  insufferable  splendor  that  fretted 
tny  heart. 

II.  For  this,  and  all  other  changes  in  my  dreams, 
were  accompanied  by  deep-seated  anxiety  and  gloomy 
melancholy,  such  as  are  wholly  incommunicable  by 
words.  1  seemed  every  night  to  descend  —  not  m3ta- 
oliorically,  but  literally  to  descend  —  into  chasms  ana 
^unless  adysses,  depths  below  depths,  fnm  which  h 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


Ill 


teemed  hopeless  that  I  could  ever  reascend.  Nor  d.’d  I, 
by  waking,  feel  that  I  had  reascended.  This  I  do  not 
dwell  upon;  because  the  state  of  gloom  which  attended 
these  gorgeous  spectacles,  amounting  at  least  to  utter 
darkness,  as  of  some  suicidal  despondency,  cannot  be 
approached  by  words. 

III.  The  sense  of  space,  and  in  the  end  the  sense  of 
time,  vrere  both  powerfully  affected.  Buildings,  land* 
scapes,  &c.,  were  exhibited  in  proportions  so  vast  as 
the  bodily  eye  is  not  fitted  to  receive.  Space  swelled, 
and  vvas  amplified  to  an  extent  of  unutterable  infinity. 
This,  however,  did  not  disturb  me  so  much  as  the  vast 
expansion  of  time.  1  sometimes  seemed  to  have  lived 
for  seventy  or  one  hundred  years  in  one  night;  nay, 
sometimes  had  feelings  representative  of  a  millennium, 
passed  in  that  time,  or,  however,  of  a  duration  far  beyond 
the  limits  of  any  human  experience. 

IV.  The  minutest  incidents  of  childhood,  or  forgotien 
scenes  of  later  years,  were  often  revived.  I  could  not 
be  said  to  recollect  them ;  for  if  I  had  been  told  of 
them  when  waking,  I  should  not  have  been  able  to 
acknowledge  them  as  parts  of  my  past  experience. 
But  placed  as  they  were  before  me,  in  dreams  like 
'ntuitions,  and  clothed  in  all  their  evanescent  circum¬ 
stances  and  accompanying  feelings,  I  recognized  them 
instantaneously.  I  was  once  told  by  a  near  relative 
jf  mine,  that  having  in  her  childhood  fallen  into  a 
river,  and  being  on  the  very  verge  of  death  but  for  the 
critical  assistance  which  reached  her,  she  saw  in  a 
moment  her  who.e  life,  in  :ts  minutest  incidents,  arrayed 
oefore  her  simultaneously  as  in  a  mirror ;  and  she  had 
\  faculty  developed  as  suddenly  for  comprehending  tb@ 


.12 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


tvhole  and  every  part.37  This,  from  some  opium  eipe- 
riences  of  mine,  I  can  believe ;  I  have,  indeed,  seen  the 
same  thing  asserted  twice  in  modem  books,  and  accom 
panied  by  a  remark  which  I  am  convinced  is  true,  namely, 
that  the  dread  book  of  account,  which  the  Scriptures 
speak  of,  is,  in  fact,  the  mind  itse.f  of  each  individual. 
Of  this,  at  least,  I  feel  assured,  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  forgetting  possible  to  the  mind  ;  a  thousand 
accidents  may  and  will  interpose  a  veil  between  ou* 
present  consciousness  and  the  secret  inscriptions  on  the 
mind  Accidents  of  the  same  sort  will  also  rend  away 
this  veil ;  but  alike,  whether  veiled  or  unveiled,  the 
inscription  remains  forever ;  just  as  the  stars  seem  to 
withdraw  before  the  common  light  of  day,  whereas, 
in  fact,  we  all  know  that  it  is  the  light  which  is  drawn 
over  them  as  a  veil ;  and  that  they  are  waiting  to  be 
revealed,  when  the  obscuring  daylight  shall  have  with¬ 
drawn. 

Having  noticed  these  four  facts  as  memorably  distin¬ 
guishing  my  dreams  from  those  of  health,  I  shall  now 
cite  a  case  illustrative  of  the  first  fact ;  and  shall  then 
cite  any  others  that  1  remember,  either  in  their  chro¬ 
nological  order,  or  any  other  that  may  give  them  more 
effect  as  pictures  to  the  reader. 

I  had  been  in  youth,  and  even  since,  for  occasional 
amusement,  a  great  reader  of  Livy,  whom  I  confess 
that  I  prefer,  both  for  style  and  matter,  to  any  other 
of  the  Roman  historians ;  and  I  had  often  felt  as  most 
xolemn  and  appalling  sounds,  and  most  emphatically 
repiasentative  of  the  majesty  of  the  Roman  peop'e,  the 
'■wo  words  so  often  occurring  in  Livy  —  Consul  Romcu 
*ms  especially  when  the  consul  is  introduced  in  his 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  113 

military  character.  I  mean  to  say,  that  the  words 
King,  sultan,  regent,  &c.,  or  any  other  titles  ol  those 
who  embody  in  their  own  persons  the  collective  majesty 
of  a  great  people,  had  less  power  over  my  reverential 
feelings.  I  had,  also,  though  no  great  reader  of  history, 
made  myself  minutely  and  critically  familiar  with  one 
period  of  English  history,  namely,  the  period  of  the  Par¬ 
liamentary  War,  having  been  attracted  by  the  moral 
grandeur  of  some  who  figured  in  that  day,  and  by  the 
many  interesting  memoirs  which  survive  those  unquiet 
times.  Both  these  parts  of  my  lighter  reading,  having 
furnished  me  often  with  matter  of  reflection,  now  fur¬ 
nish  me  with  matter  for  my  dreams.  Often  I  used 
to  see,  after  painting  upon  the  blank  darkness,  a  sort 
of  rehearsal  whilst  waking,  a  crowd  of  ladies,  and  per¬ 
haps  a  festival  and  dances.  And  I  heard  it  said,  or 
1  said  to  myself,  “  These  are  English  ladies  from  the 
unhappy  times  of  Charles  I.  These  are  the  wives  and 
daughters  of  those  who  met  in  peace,  and  sat  at  the 
same  tables,  and  were  allied  by  marriage  or  by  blood ; 
and  yet,  after  a  certain  day  in  August,  1642, 38  never 
smiled  upon  each  other  again,  nor  met  but  in  the  field 
of  battle ;  and  at  Marston  Moor,  at  Newbury,  or  at 
Naseby,  cut  asunder  all  ties  of  love  by  the  cruel  sabre, 
ind  washed  away  in  blood  the  memory  of  ancient 
friendship.”  The  ladies  danced,  and  looked  as  lovely 
is  the  court  of  George  IV.  Yet  I  knew,  even  in  my 
uream,  that  they  hod  been  in  the  grave  for  nearly  two 
tenturies.  This  pageant;  would  suddenly  dissolve ;  ard, 
at  a  clapping  of  hands  would  oe  heard  the  heart* 
quaking  sound  of  Consul  Rom  anus ;  and  immediately 
tame  “sweeping  by,”  in  gorgeous  naludaments,  P&JiUS 


M 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


di  Marius,  girt  around  by  a  company  of  centurions,  vntl 
the  crimson  tunic  hoisted  on  a  spear,  and  followed  by 
the  tdalagmos  of  the  Roman  legions. 

Many  years  ago,  when  I  was  looking  over  Piranesi’s 
Antiquities  of  Rome,  Mr.  Coleridge,  who  was  standing 
ly,  described  to  me  a  set  of  plates  by  that  artist,  sailed 
his  Dreams ,  and  which  record  the  scenery  of  his  own 
visions  during  the  delirium  of  a  fever.  Some  of  them 
(1  describe  only  from  memory  of  Mr.  Coleridge’s  ac¬ 
count)  represented  vast  Gothic  halls  ;  on  the  floor  of 
which  stood  all  sorts  of  engines  and  machinery,  wheels, 
cables,  pulleys,  levers,  catapults,  &c.,  expressive  of 
enormous  power  put  forth,  and  resistance  overcome. 
Creeping  along  the  sides  of  the  walls,  you  perceived  a 
staircase  ;  and  upon  it,  groping  his  way  upwards,  wa9 
Piranesi  himself.  Follow  the  stairs  a  little  further,  and 
you  perceive  it  to  come  to  a  sudden,  abrupt  termination, 
without  any  balustrade,  and  allowing  no  step  onwards 
to  him  who  had  reached  the  extremity,  except  into  the 
depths  below.  Whatever  is  to  become  of  poor  Piranesi, 
you  suppose,  at  least,  that  his  labors  must  in  some  way 
terminate  here.  But  raise  your  eyes,  and  behold  a 
second  flight  of  stairs  still  higher;  on  which  again 
Piranesi  is  perceived,  by  this  time  standing  on  the  verj 
Drink  of  the  abyss.  Again  elevate  your  eye,  and  a 
still  more  aerial  flight  of  stairs  is  beheld ;  and  again  is 
poor  Piranesi  busy  on  his  aspiring  labors ;  and  so  on 
until  the  unfinished  stairs  and  Piranesi  both  are  lost  in 
the  upper  gloom  of  the  hall.  With  the  same  power 
of  endless  growth  and  self-reproduction  did  my  archi 
tecture  proceed  in  dreams.  In  the  early  stage  of  my 
'flu  lady,  the  splendors  of  my  dreams  were  indeeC 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


115 


chiefly  architectural ;  and  I  beheld  such  pomp  of  cities 
End  palaces  as  was  never  yet  beheld  by  the  waking 
eye,  unless  in  the  clouds.  From  a  great  modern  poet.39 
f  cite  the  part  of  a  passage  which  describes,  as  an 
appearance  actually  beheld  in  the  clouds,  what  in  many 
of  its  circumstances  I  saw  frequently  in  sleep ; 

The  appearance,  instantaneously  disclosed. 

Was  of  a  mighty  city  —  boldly  say 
A  wilderness  of  building,  sinking  far 
And  self- withdrawn  into  a  wondrous  depth, 

Far  sinking  into  splendor  —  without  end  ! 

Fabric  it  seemed  of  diamond,  and  of  gold, 

With  alabaster  domes  and  silver  spires, 

And  blazing  terrace  upon  terrace,  high 
Uplifted  ;  here,  serene  pavilions  bright, 

In  avenues  disposed  ;  there  towers  begirt 
With  battlements  that  on  their  restless  fronts 
Bore  stars  —  illumination  of  all  gems! 

By  earthly  nature  had  the  effect  been  wrought 
Upon  the  dark  materials  of  the  storm 
Now  pacified  ;  on  them,  and  on  the  coves, 

And  mountain-steeps  and  summits,  whereunto 
The  vapors  had  receded  —  taking  there 
Their  station  under  a  cerulean  sky,  &c.  &c. 

The  sublime  circumstance  —  “ battlements  that  <na 
klieir  restless  fronts  bore  stars”  —  might  have  been 
copied  from  my  architectural  dreams,  for  it  often  oc¬ 
curred.  We  hear  it  reported  of  Dryden,  and  of  Fusel) 
in  modern  times,  that  they  thought  proper  to  eat  raw 
meat  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  splendid  dreams :  how 
much  better,  for  such  a  purpose,  to  have  eaten  opium 
•vhich  yet  I  do  not  remember  that  any  poet  is  recorded 
io  have  done,  except  the  dramatist  Shidwell;  and  in 
*ncient  days,  Homer  is,  I  thmR,  rightly  "eputed  to  hav« 
Known  tne  vinues  of  opium. 


.16 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


To  my  architecture  succeeded  dreams  of  lakes 
md  silvery  expanses  of  water :  these  haunted  me  sc 
much,  that  I  feared  (though  possibly  it  wi*l  appeal 
udicrous  to  a  medical  man)  that  some  dropsical  state  01 
tendency  of  the  bram  might  thus  be  making  itself  (to 
use  a  metaphysical  word)  objective,  and  the  sentient 
organ  project  itself  as  its  own  object.  For  two  months 
I  suffered  greatly  in  my  head  —  a  part  of  my  bodily 
structure  which  had  hitherto  been  so  clear  from  all 
touch  or  taint  of  weakness  (physically,  I  mean),  that  1 
used  to  say  of  it,  as  the  last  Lord  Orford  said  of  his 
stomach,  that  it  seemed  likely  to  survive  the  rest  of  my 
person.  Till  now  I  had  never  felt  a  headache  even,  oi 
any  the  slightest  pain,  except  rheumatic  pains  caused 
by  my  own  folly.  However,  I  got  over  this  attack, 
though  it  must  have  been  verging  on  something  very 
dangerous. 

The  waters  now  changed  their  character,  —  from 
translucent  lakes,  shining  like  mirrors,  they  now  be¬ 
came  seas  and  oceans.  And  now  came  a  tremendous 
change,  which,  unfolding  itself  slowly  like  a  scroll 
through  many  months,  promised  an  abiding  torment ; 
and,  in  fact,  it  never  left  me  until  the  winding  up  of 
my  case.  Hitherto  the  human  face  had  often  mixed  in 
my  dreams,  but  not  despotically,  nor  with  any  special 
power  of  tormenting.  But  now  that  which  I  have 
called  the  tyranny  of  the  human  face,  began  to  unfold 
itself.  Perhaps  some  part  of  my  London  life  might  be 
answerable  for  this.  Be  that  as  it  may,  now  it  was 
that  upon  the  rocking  waters  of  the  ocean  the  human 
5ace  began  to  appear;  the  sea  appeared  paved  with 
innumerable  faces,  upturned  to  the  heavens;  face* 


FNGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  117 

inploring,  wrathful,  despairing,  surged  upwards  by 
.housands,  by  myriads,  by  generations,  by  centuries 
mv  agitation  was  infinite,  my  mind  tossed,  and  surged 
with  the  ocean. 

May ,  1818.  —  The  Malay  had  been  a  fearful  enemy 
for  months.  I  have  been  every  night,  through  his 
means,  transported  into  Asiatic  scenes.  I  know  not 
whether  others  share  in  my  feelings  on  this  point;  but 
I  have  often  thought  that  if  I  were  compelled  to  forego 
England,  and  to  live  in  China,  and  among  Chinese 
manners  and  modes  of  life  and  scenery,  I  should  go 
mad.  The  causes  of  my  horror  lie  deep,  and  some  of 
them  must  be  common  to  others.  Southern  Asia,  in 
general,  is  the  seat  of  awful  images  and  associations. 
As  the  cradle  of  the  human  race,  it  would  alone  have 
a  dim  and  reverential  feeling  connected  with  it.  But 
there  are  other  reasons.  No  man  can  pretend  that  the 
wild,  barbarous,  and  capricious  superstitions  of  Africa, 
or  of  savage  tribes  elsewhere,  affect  him  m  the  way 
that  he  is  affected  by  the  ancient,  monumental,  cruel, 
and  elaborate  religions  of  Indostan,  &c.  The  mere 
antiquity  of  Asiatic  things,  of  their  institutions,  histories, 
modes  of  faith,  &c.,  is  so  impressive,  that  to  me  the 
vast  age  of  the  race  and  name  overpowers  the  sense  of 
youth  in  the  individual.  A  young  Chinese  seems  to 
me  an  antediluvian  man  renewed.  Even  English¬ 
men,  though  not  bred  in  any  knowledge  of  such  insti¬ 
tutions,  cannot  but  shudder  at  the  mystic  sublimity 
of  rastes  that  have  flowed  apart  and  refused  to  mix. 
through  such  immemorial  tracts  oi  time  ;  nor  can  anv 
man  fail  to  be  awed  by  the  names  of  the  Ganges,  or  the 
Euphrates.  It  contributes  much  to  these  feelings,  thal 


118 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


Southern  Asia  is,  and  has  been  for  thousands  of  years 
the- part  of  the  earth  most  swarming  with  human  life 
the  great  ojjicvia  gentium.  Man  is  a  weed  in  thos® 
'egiotis.  The  vast  empires,  also,  into  which  the  enor¬ 
mous  population  of  Asia  has  always  been  cast,  give  a 
further  sublimity  to  the  feelings  associated  with  all  ori¬ 
ental  names  or  images.  In  China,  over  and  above  what 
it  has  in  common  with  the  rest  of  Southern  Asia,  I  am 
terrified  by  the  modes  of  life,  by  the  manners,  and  the 
barrier  of  utter  abhorrence,  and  want  of  sympathy, 
placed  between  us  by  feelings  deeper  than  I  can  ana¬ 
lyze.  I  could  sooner  live  with  lunatics,  or  brute  ani¬ 
mals.  All  this,  and  much  more  than  I  can  say,  or 
have  time  to  say,  the  reader  must  enter  into,  before  he 
can  comprehend  the  unimaginable  horror  which  these 
dreams  of  oriental  imagery,  and  mythological  tortures, 
impressed  upon  me.  Under  the  connecting  feeling  of 
tropical  heat  and  vertical  sunlights,  I  brought  together 
all  creatures,  birds,  beasts,  reptiles,  all  trees  and  plants, 
usages  and  appearances,  that  are  found  in  all  tropical 
regions,  and  assembled  them  together  in-  China  or  In- 
dostan.  From  kindred  feelings,  I  soon  brought  Egypt 
and  all  her  gods  under  the  same  law.  I  was  stared  at, 
hooted  at,  grinned  at,  chattered  at,  by  monkeys,  by 
paroquets,  by  cockatoos.  I  ran  into  pagodas,  and  was 
fixed,  for  centuries,  at  the  summit,  or  in  secret  rooms: 
[  was  the  idM;  I  was  the  priest;  I  was  worshipped* 
i  was  sacrificed.  I  fled  from  the  wrath  of  Braina 
through  all  the  forests  of  Asia :  Vishnu  hated  me 
Seeva  laid  wait  for  me.  I  came  suddenly  upon  Isis 
tuid  Osiris :  I  had  done  a  deed,  they  said,  which  the 
Vis  and  the  crocodile  trembled  at.  I  was  buned,  for 


ENGLISH  OPIUH-EATER. 


m 


thousand  years,  in  stone  coffins,  with  mummies  and 
sphinxes,  in  narrow  chambers  at  the  heart  of  eternal 
pyramids.  I  was  kissed,  with  cancerous  kisses,  by 
crocodiles ;  and  laid,  confounded  with  all  unutterable 
slimy  things,  amongst  reeds  and  Nilotic  mud. 

I  thus  give  the  reader  some  slight  abstraction  of  my 
oriental  dreams,  which  always  filled  me  with  such 
amazement  at  the  monstrous  scenery,  that  horror 
seemed  absorbed,  for  a  while,  in  sheer  astonishment. 
Sooner  or  later  came  a  reflux  of  feeling  that  swallowed 
up  the  astonishment,  and  left  me,  not  so  much  in  ter¬ 
ror,  as  in  hatred  and  abomination  of  what  I  saw. 
Over  every  form,  and  threat,  and  punishment,  and  dim 
sightless  incarceration,  brooded  a  sense  of  eternity  and 
infinity  that  drove  me  into  an  oppression  as  of  madness, 
[nto  these  dreams  only,  it  was,  with  one  or  two  slight 
exceptions,  that  any  circumstances  of  physical  horror 
entered.  All  before  had  been  moral  and  spiritual  ter 
rors.  But  here  the  main  agents  were  ugly  birds,  oj 
snakes,  or  crocodiles,  especially  the  last.  The  cursed 
crocodile  became  to  me  the  object  of  more  horror  than 
almost  all  the  rest.  I  was  compelled  to  live  with  him ; 
and  (as  was  always  the  case,  almost,  in  my  dreams)  for 
centuries.  I  escaped  sometimes,  and  found  myself  in 
Chinese  houses  vHth  cane  tables,  &c.  All  the  feet  of 
the  tables,  sofas,  &c.,  soon  became  instinct  with  life  ; 
the  abominable  head  of  the  crocodile,  and  his  leering 
eyes,  looked  out  at  me,  multiplied  into  a  thousand  repe¬ 
titions  ;  and  I  stood  loathing  and  fascinated.  And  tso 
often  did  this  hideous  reptile  haunt  my  dreams,  that 
many  times  the  very  same  dream  was  oroken  up  in  the 
rery  same  way  :  I  heard  gentle  mices  speaking  to  me 


120 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


(I  hear  everything  when  I  am  sleeping),  and  instantly 
*  awok? :  it  was  broad  noon,  and  my  children  were 
Etanding,  hand  in  hand,  at  my  bedside;  come  to  show 
Tie  their  colored  shoes,  or  new  frocks,  or  to  let  mo 
eee  them  dressed  for  going  out.  I  protest  that  s$ 
awful  wTas  the  transition  from  the  damned  crocodile, 
and  the  other  unutterable  monsters  and  abortions  of  my 
dreams,  to  the  sight  of  innocent  human  natures  and  of 
infancy,  that,  in  the  mighty  and  sudden  revulsion  of 
mind,  I  wept,  and  could  not  forbear  it,  as  I  kissed  theii 
faces. 

June ,  1S19.  —  I  have  had  occasion  to  remark,  at 
various  periods  of  my  life,  that  the  deaths  of  those 
whom  we  love,  and,  indeed,  the  contemplation  of  death 
generally,  is  ( cceteris  paribus)  more  affecting  in  sum¬ 
mer  than  in  any  other  season  of  the  year.  And  the 
reasons  are  these  three,  I  think :  first,  that  the  visible 
heavens  in  summer  appear  far  higher,  more  distant, 
and  (if  such  a  solecism  may  be  excused)  more  infinite ; 
the  clouds  by  which  chiefly  the  eye  expounds  the  dis¬ 
tance  of  the  blue  pavilion  stretched  over  our  heads  are 
in  summer  more  voluminous,  massed,  and  accumulated 
in  far  grander  and  more  towering  piles:  secondly,  the 
light  and  the  appearances  of  the  declining  and  the  set¬ 
ting  sun  are  much  more  fitted  to  be  types  and  charac¬ 
ters  of  the  infinite :  and,  thirdly  (which  is  the  main 
reason),  the  exuberant  and  riotous  prodigality  of  life 
naturally  forces  the  mind  more  powerfully  upon  the 
antagonist  thought  of  death,  and  the  wintry  sterdity 
if  the  grave.  For  it  may  be  observed,  generally,  tha 
wherever  two  thoughts  stand  ^elated  to  each  other  by  a 
aw  of  antagonism,  and  as  it  were,  by  mutua 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


121 


rpilsion,  they  are  apt  to  suggest  each  other.  On  these 
accounts  it  is  that  1  find  it  impossible  to  banish  the 
thought  of  death  when  I  am  walking  alone  in  the  end¬ 
less  days  of  summer;  and  any  particular  death,  if  not 
more  affecting,  at  least  haunts  my  mind  more  obstinately 
and  besiegingly,  in  that  season.  Perhaps  this  cause,  and 
a  slight  incident  which  I  omit,  might  have  been  the 
immediate  occasions  of  the  following  dream,  to  which, 
however,  a  predisposition  must  always  have  existed  in 
my  mind  ;  but  having  been  once  roused,  it  never  left  me, 
and  split  into  a  thousand  fantastic  varieties,  which  often 
suddenly  reunited,  and  composed  again  the  original 
dream. 

I  thought  that  it  was  a  Sunday  morning  in  May;  that 
it  was  Easter  Sunday,  and  as  yet  very  early  in  the 
morning.  1  was  standing,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  at  the 
door  of  my  own  cottage.  Right  before  me  lay  the  very' 
scene  which  could  really  be  commanded  from  that  situa¬ 
tion,  but  exalted,  as  was  usual,  and  solemnized  by  the 
power  of  dreams.  There  were  the  same  mountains,  and 
the  same  lovely  valley  at  their  feet ;  but  the  mountains 
were  raised  to  more  than  Alpine  height,  and  there  was 
interspace  far  larger  between  them  of  meadows  and 
forest  lawns ;  the  hedges  were  rich  with  white  roses  ; 
and  no  living  creature  was  to  be  seen,  excepting  that  in 
the  green  church-yard  there  were  cattle  tranquilly  repos- 
ng  upon  the  verdant  graves,  and  particularly  round 
vbout  the  grave  of  a  child  whom  I  had  tenderly  loved, 
hist  as  1  had  really  beheld  th°m,  a  little  before  sunrise. 
,n  the  same  summer,  when  that  child  died.  I  gazed 
tpon  the  well-known  sc°ne,  and  I  said  aloud  (as  I 
bought)  to  myself,  “  It  yet  wants  much  of  sunrise  *  an*! 


m 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


t  is  Easter  Sunday;  and  that  is  the  day  on  which  they 
celebrate  the  first  fruits  of  resurrection.  I  will  walk 
abroad  ;  old  griefs  shall  be  forgotten  to-day ;  for  the  ail 
is  cool  and  still,  and  the  hills  are  high,  and  stretch  away 
to  heaven ;  and  the  forest  glades  are  as  quiet  as  the 
church-yard  ;  and  with  the  dew  I  can  wash  the  fevel 
from  my  forehead,  and  then  I  shall  be  unhappy  no 
longer.”  And  I  turned,  as  if  to  open  my  garden  gate ; 
and  immediately  I  saw  upon  the  left  a  scene  far  differ¬ 
ent  ;  but  which  yet  the  power  of  dreams  had  reconciled 
into  harmony  with  the  other.  The  scene  wras  an  orien¬ 
tal  one ;  and  there  also  it  was  Easter  Sunday,  and  very 
early  in  the  morning.  And  at  a  vast  distance  were  visi¬ 
ble,  as  a  stain  upon  the  horizon,  the  domes  and  cupolas 
of  a  great  city  —  an  image  or  faint  abstraction,  caught, 
perhaps,  in  childhood,  from  some  picture  of  Jerusalem 
And  not  a  bow-shot  from  me,  upon  a  stone,  and  shaded 
by  Judean  palms,  there  sat  a  woman;  and  I  looked,  and 
it  was  —  Ann!  She  fixed  her  eyes  upon  me  earnestly; 
and  I  said  to  her,  at  length,  “  So,  then,  I  have  found  you, 
i\t  last.”  I  waited  ;  but  she  answered  me  not  a  word, 
Her  face  was  the  same  as  when  I  saw  it  last,  and  yet, 
again,  how  different !  Seventeen  years  ago,  when  the 
amp-light  fell  upon  her  face,  as  for  the  last  time  I  kissed 
her  lips  (lips,  Ann,  that  to  me  were  not  polluted !),  hei 
eyes  were  streaming  with  tears  ;  —  her  tears  were  now 
viped  away ;  she  seemed  more  beautiful  than  she  was 
fet  that  time,  but  in  all  other  points  the  same,  and  not 
olden  Her  looks  were  tranquil,  but  with  unusual  solem 
mty  of  expression,  and  I  now  gazed  upon  her  with  some 
twc  but  suddenly  her  countenance  grew  dim,  and,  turn 
ng  to  the  mountains,  I  perceived  vapors  rolling  betweei 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


12H 


es  ;  in  a  moment,  all  had  vanished ;  thick  darkness 
tame  on  ;  and  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  I  was  far  away 
from  mountains,  and  by  lamp-light  in  Oxford-street, 
walking  again  with  Ann — just  as  we  walked  seventeen 
years  before,  when  we  were  both  children. 

As  a  final  specimen,  I  cite  one  of  a  different  character, 
from  1820. 

The  dream  commenced  with  a  music  which  now  1 
often  heard  in  dreams  —  a  music  of  preparation  and 
of  awakening  suspense  ;  a  music  like  the  opening  of  the 
Coronation  Anthem,  and  which,  like  that ,  gave  the  feel¬ 
ing  of  a  vast  march,  of  infinite  cavalcades  filing  off,  and 
the  tread  of  innumerable  armies.  The  morning-  was 
come  of  a  mighty  day  —  a  day  of  crisis  and  of  final  hope 
for  human  nature,  then  suffering  some  mysterious 
eclipse,  and  laboring  in  some  dread  extremity.  Some¬ 
where,  I  knew  not  where  —  somehow,  I  knew  not  how 
—  by  some  beings,  I  knew  not  whom  —  a  battle,  a  strife, 
un  agony,  was  conducting,  —  was  evolving  like  a  great 
drama,  or  piece  of  music ;  with  which  my  sympathy  was 
the  more  insupportable  from  my  confusion  as  to  its 
place,  its  cause,  its  nature,  and  its  possible  issue.  I,  as  is 
usual  in  dreams  (where,  of  necessity,  we  make  ourselves 
central  to  every  movement),  had  the  power,  and  yet  had 
not  the  power,  to  decide  it.  I  had  the  power,  if  I  could 
•»use  myself,  to  will  it;  and  yet  again  had  not  tne 
power,  for  the  weight  of  twenty  Atlantics  was  upon  me, 
or  the  oppression  of  inexpiable  guilt.  “  Deeper  than 
ever  plummet  sounded,”  l  lay  inactive.  Then,  like  a 
rhorus,  the  passion  deepened.  Some  greater  interest 
vas  at  stake;  some  mightier  cause  than  ever  yet  the 
^ord  had  pleaded,  or  trumpet  had  proclaimed.  Ihetf 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


m 

:ame  sadden  alarms;  hurryings  to  and  fro;  trepidation* 
of  innumerable  fugitives.  I  knew  not  whether  from  the 
good  cause  or  the  bad;  darkness  and  lights;  tempest 
and  human  faces ;  and  at  last,  with  the  sense  that  ah 
was  lost,  female  forms,  and  the  features  that  were  worth 
all  the  world  to  me,  and  but  a  moment  allowed,  —  and 
clasped  hands,  and  heart-breaking  partings,  and  then 

—  everlasting  farewells!  and,  with  a  sigh,  such  as  the 
caves  of  hell  sighed  when  the  incestuous  mother  uttered 
the  abhorred  name  of  death,  the  sound  was  reverberated 

—  everlasting  farewells  !  and  again,  and  yet  again  rever¬ 
berated  —  everlasting  farewells ! 

And  I  awoke  in  struggles,  and  cried  aloud  —  “I  will 
sleep  no  more  !  ” 

But  I  am  now  called  upon  to  wind  up  a  narrative 
which  has  already  extended  to  an  unreasonable  length. 
Within  more  spacious  limits,  the  materials  which  I 
have  used  might  have  been  better  unfolded ;  and  much 
which  I  have  not  used  might  have  been  added  with 
effect.  Perhaps,  however,  enough  has  been  given.  It 
now  remains  that  I  should  say  something  of  the  way  in 
which  this  conflict  of  horrors  was  finally  brought  to  its 
crisis.  The  reader  is  already  aware  (from  a  passage 
near  the  beginning  of  the  introduction  to  the  first  part) 
that  the  opium-eater  has,  in  some  way  or  other,  “un¬ 
wound,  almost  to  its  final  links,  the  accursed  chain 
which  bound  him.”  By  what  means  ?  To  have  nar¬ 
rated  this,  according  to  the  original  intention,  would 
Have  far  exceeded  the  space  which  can  now  be  allowed. 
It  is  fortunate,  as  such  a  cogent  reason  exists  for  abridg¬ 
ing  it.  ihat  I  should,  on  a  maturer  view  of  the  case,  have 
Been  rtceedingyl  unwilling  to  injure,  by  any  such  unaf 


ENGLISH  0 FILM-EATER. 


125 


Fecting  details,  the  impression  of  the  history  itself,  as  an 
appeal  to  the  prudence  and  the  conscience  of  the  yet 
unconfirmed  opium-eater,  or  even  (though  a  very  inferior 
consideration)  to  injure  its  effect  as  a  composition.  The 
interest  of  the  judicious  reader  will  not  attach  itself 
chiefly  to  the  subject  of  the  fascinating  spells,  but  to  the 
fascinating  power.  Not  the  opium-eater,  but  the  opium, 
is  the  true  hero  of  the  tale,  and  the  legitimate  centre  on 
which  the  interest  revolves.  The  object  was  to  display 
the  marvellous  agency  of  opium,  whether  for  pleasure  or 
for  pain ;  if  that  is  done,  the  action  of  the  piece  has 
closed. 

However,  as  some  people,  in  spite  of  all  laws  to  the 
contrary,  will  persist  in  asking  what  became  of  the 
opium-eater,  and  in  what  state  he  now  is,  I  answer  for 
him  thus  :  The  reader  is  aware  that  opium  had  Jong 
ceased  to  found  its  empire  on  spells  of  pleasure ;  it 
was  solely  by  the  tortures  connected  with  the  attempt 
to  abjure  it,  that  it  kept  its  hold.  Yet,  as  other  tor¬ 
tures,  no  less,  it  may  be  thought,  attended  the  non¬ 
abjuration  of  such  a  tyrant,  a  choice  only  of  evils  was 
left;  and  that  might  as  well  have  been  adopted,  which, 
however  terrific  in  itself,  held  out  a  prospect  of  final 
restoration  to  happiness.  This  appears  true ;  but  good 
ogic  gave  the  author  no  strength  to  act  upon  it.  How¬ 
ever,  a  crisis  arrived  for  the  author’s  life,  and  a  crisis 
for  other  Dbjects  stil1  dearer  to  him,  and  which  will 
ilways  be  far  dearer  to  him  than  his  life,  even  now 
that  it  is  again  a  happy  one.  I  saw  that  I  must  die,  if 
l  continued  the  opium  :  I  determined,  therefore,  if  that 
ihould  be  required,  to  die  in  throwing  it  off.  How 
tauch  I  was  at  that  time  taking,  I  cannot  say ;  for  th« 


.26 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN 


npium  which  I  used  had  been  purchased  for  me  by  % 
friend,  who  afterwards  refused  to  let  me  pay  him;  so 
that  I  could  not  ascertain  even  what  quantity  I  had 
used  within  a  year.  I  apprehend,  however,  that  I  took 
it  very  irregularly,  and  that  I  varied  from  about  fifty  oi 
sixty  grains  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  a  day.  My  first 
task  was  to  reduce  it  to  forty,  to  thirty,  and,  as  fast  as  I 
could,  to  twelve  grains. 

1  triumphed  ;  but  think  not,  reader,  that  therefore 
my  sufferings  were  ended ;  nor  think  of  me  as  of  one 
sitting  in  a  dejected  state.  Think  of  me  as  of  one, 
even  when  four  months  had  passed,  still  agitated, 
writhing,  throbbing,  palpitating,  shattered;  and  much, 
perhaps,  in  the  situation  of  him  who  has  been  racked, 
as  I  collect  the  torments  of  that  state  from  the  affecting 
account  of  them  left  by  the  most  innocent  sufferer*  (of 
the  time  of  James  I.).  Meantime,  I  derived  no  benefit 
from  any  medicine,  except  one  prescribed  to  me  by  an 
Edinburgh  surgeon  of  great  eminence,  namely,  ammo 
i.iated  tincture  of  valerian.  Medical  account,  therefore, 
of  my  emancipation,  I  have  not  much  to  give ;  and 
even  that  little,  as  managed  by  a  man  so  ignorant  of 
medicine  as  myself,  would  probably  tend  only  to  mis- 
ead.  At  all  events,  it  would  be  misplaced  in  this  situa¬ 
tion.  The  moral  of  the  narrative  is  addressed  to  the 
opium-eater;  and  therefore,  of  necessity,  limited  in  ita 
application.  If  he  is  taught  to  fear  and  tremble,  enough 
has  been  effected.  But  he  may  say,  that  the  issue  of 
ny  case  is  at  least  a  proof  that  opium,  after  a  seven 

*  William  Lithgow;  his  book  (Travels,  &c.)  is  ill  and  pedanti 
wxlly  written  ;  but  the  account  of  his  own  caffe  rings  on  the  rack 
Vlilaga  is  orerpoweringly  affecting. 


ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


127 


teen  years’  use,  and  an  eight  years’  abuse  of  its  powers, 
may  still  be  renounced;  and  that  he  may  chance  to 
bring  to  the  task  greater  energy  than  I  did,  01  that, 
with  a  stronger  constitution  than  mine,  he  may  obtain 
the  same  results  with  less.  This  may  be  true ;  1  would 
not  presume  to  measure  the  efforts  of  other  men  by  my 
own.  I  heartily  wish  him  more  energy;  I  wish  him  the 
same  success.  Nevertheless,  I  had  motives  external  to 
myself  which  he  may  unfortunately  want ;  and  these 
supplied  me  with  conscientious  supports,  which  mere 
personal  interests  might  fail  to  supply  to  a  mind  deb  li- 
tated  by  opium. 

Jeremy  Taylor40  conjectures  that  it  may  be  as  painful 
to  be  born  as  to  die.  I  think  it  probable ;  and,  during 
ihe  whole  period  of  diminishing  the  opium,  I  had  the 
torments  of  a  man  passing  out  of  one  mode  of  existence 
into  another.  The  issue  was  not  death,  but  a  sort  of 
physical  regeneration,  and,  I  may  add,  that  ever  since, 
at  intervals,  I  have  had  a  restoration  of  more  than 
youthful  spirits,  though  under  the  pressure  of  difficulties, 
which,  in  a  less  happy  state  of  mind,  I  should  have 
called  misfortunes. 

One  memorial  of  my  former  condition  still  remains ; 
tny  dreams  are  not  yet  perfectly  Ualm;  the  dread  swell 
and  agitation  of  the  storm  have  not  wholly  subsided;  the 
legions  that  encamped  in  them  are  drawing  off,  but  not 
all  departed;  my  sleep  is  tumultuous,  and  like  the  gates 
of  Paradise  to  our  first  parents  when  looking  back  from 
faT,  it  is  still  fin  the  tremendous  line  of  Milton)  — 


With  dreadlul  fares  thiongert  and  r ery  arms 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX. 


The  proprietors  of  this  little  work  having  deter* 
•nined  on  reprinting  it,  some  explanation  seems  called 
for,  to  account  for  the  non-appearance  of  a  Third  Part, 
promised  in  the  London  Magazine  of  December  last; 
and  the  more  so,  because  the  proprietors,  under  whose 
guarantee  that  promise  was  issued,  might  otherwise  bo 
implicated  in  the  blame  —  little  or  much  —  attached 
to  its  non-fulfilment.  This  blame,  in  mere  justice,  the 
author  takes  wholly  upon  himself.  What  may  be  the 
exact  amount  of  the  guilt  which  he  thus  appropriates, 
is  a  very  dark  question  to  his  own  judgment,  and  not 
much  illuminated  by  any  of  the  masters  on  casuistry 
whom  he  has  consulted  on  the  occasion.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  seems  generally  agreed  that  a  promise  is  bind 
ing  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  the  numbers  to  whom  it  is 
made :  for  which  reason  it  is  that  we  see  many  per- 
Bom  break  promises  without  scruple  that  are  made  to  a 
whole  nation,  who  keep  their  faith  religiously  in  all  pri¬ 
vate  engagements,  —  breaches  of  promise  towards  the 
stronger  party  being  committeu  at  a  man’s  own  peril 
Dn  the  other  hand,  the  only  parties  interested  in  the 
promises  of  an  author  are  his  readers  and  these  it  is  a 


132 


APPENDIX 


Doint  of  modesty  in  any  author  to  believe  as  few  as  poa> 
sible ,  or  perhaps  only  one,  in  which  case  any  promise 
imposes  a  sanctity  of  moral  obligation  which  it  is  shock 
ing  to  think  of.  Casuistry  dismissed,  howevei  —  the 
author  throws  himself  on  the  indulgent  consideration  of 
all  who  may  conceive  themselves  aggrieved  by  his  delay, 
in  the  following  account  of  his  own  condition  from  the 
end  of  last  year,  when  the  engagement  was  made,  up 
nearly  to  the  present  time.  For  any  purpose  of  self¬ 
excuse,  it  might  be  sufficient  to  say,  that  intolerable 
bodily  suffering  had  totally  disabled  him  for  almost  any 
exertion  of  mind,  more  especially  for  such  as  demand 
and  presuppose  a  pleasurable  and  a  genial  state  of  feel¬ 
ing  ;  but,  as  a  case  that  may  by  possibility  contribute  n 
trifle  to  the  medical  history  of  opium  in  a  further  stage 
of  its  action  than  can  often  have  been  brought  under  the 
notice  of  professional  men,  he  has  judged  that  it  might 
be  acceptable  to  some  readers  to  have  it  described  more 
at  length.  Fiat  experimentum  m  corpore  vili  is  a  just 
rule  where  there  is  any  reasonable  presumption  of  ben¬ 
efit  to  arise  on  a  large  scale.  What  the  benefit  may 
be,  will  admit  of  a  doubt ;  but  there  can  be  none  as  to 
the  value  of  the  body,  for  a  more  worthless  body  than 
nis  own,  the  author  is  free  to  confess,  cannot  be.  It  is 
his  pride  to  believe,  that  it  is  the  very  ideal  of  a  base., 
crazy,  despicable  human  system,  that  hardly  ever  could 
nave  been  meant  to  be  seaworthy  for  two  days  under 
the  ordinary  storms  and  wear-and-tear  of  life .  and 
indeed,  if  that  were  the  creditable  way  of  disposing 
of  human  bodies,  he  must  own  that  he  should  almos' 
be  ashamed  to  bequeath  his  wretched  structure  to  any 
•'esDcctahle  dog.  But  now  to  the  case,  which,  for  the 


APPENDIX. 


133 


Bake  of  avoiding  the  constant  recurrence  of  a  cumber 
Borne  periphrasis,  the  author  will  take  the  liberty  o* 
giving  in  the  first  person. 


Those  who  have  read  the  Confessions  will  have 
closed  them  with  the  impression  that  I  had  wholly 
renounced  the  use  of  opium.  This  impression  I  meant 
to  convey,  and  that  for  two  reasons  :  first,  because  the 
very  act  of  deliberately  recording  such  a  state  of  suffer¬ 
ing  necessarily  presumes  in  the  recorder  a  power  oi 
surveying  his  own  case  as  a  cool  spectator,  and  a 
degree  of  spirits  for  adequately  describing  it,  which  n 
would  be  inconsistent  to  suppose  in  any  person  speak 
ing  from  the  station  of  an  actual  sufferer;  secondly> 
because  I,  who  had  descended  from  so  large  a  quantity 
as  eight  thousand  drops  to  so  small  a  one  (compara 
tively  speaking)  as  a  quantity  ranging  between  thret 
hundred  and  one  hundred  and  sixty  drops,  might  well 
suppose  that  the  victory  was  in  effect  achieved.  In 
suffering  my  readers,  therefore,  to  think  of  me  as  of  a 
reformed  opium-eater.  I  left  no  impression  but  what  j 
shared  myself,  and,  as  may  be  seen,  even  this  impres¬ 
sion  was  left  to  be  collected  from  the  general  tone  of 
tire  conclusion,  and  not  from  any  specific  words,  which 
are  in  no  instance  at  variance  with  tne  literal  truth, 
Ln  no  long  time  after  that  paper  was  written,  I  became 
sensible  that  the  effort  which  remained  would  cost  me 
far  more  energy  than  I  had  anticipated,  and  the  nece» 
*it)  for  making  it  was  more  apparent  every  month 


APPENDIX. 


m 


In  particular,  I  became  aware  of  an  increasing  callous 
ness  or  defect  of  sensibility  in  the  stomach :  and  tnis  , 
urtagmed  might  imply  a  schirrous  state  of  that  orgas 
rither  formed  or  forming.  An  eminent  physician 
to  whose  kindness  I  was,  at  that  time,  deeply  indebted, 
informed  me  that  such  a  termination  of  my  case  was  not 
impossible,  though  likely  to  be  forestalled  by  a  different 
termination,  in  the  event  of  my  continuing  the  use  of 
opium.  Opium,  therefore,  I  resolved  wholly  to  abjure 
as  soon  as  I  should  find  myself  at  liberty  to  bend  my 
undivided  attention  and  energy  to  this  purpose.  It  was 
not,  however,  until  the  24th  of  June  last  that  any  toler¬ 
able  concurrence  of  facilities  for  such  an  attempt 
arrived.  On  that  day  I  began  my  experiment,  having 
previously  settled  in  my  own  mind  that  I  would  net 
flinch,  but  would  “  stand  up.  to  the  scratch,”  under  any 
possible  “punishment.”  I  must  premise,  that  about 
one  hundred  and  seventy  or  one  hundred  and  eighty 
drops  had  been  my  ordinary  allowance  for  many 
months.  Occasionally  I  had  run  up  as  high  as  five 
hundred,  and  once  nearly  to  seven  hundred.  In  re¬ 
peated  preludes  to  my  final  experiment  I  had  also  gone 
as  low  as  one  hundred  drops,  but  had  found  it  impos¬ 
sible  to  stand  it  beyond  the  fourth  day,  which,  by  the 
way,  I  have  always  found  more  difficult  to  get  over 
than  any  of  the  preceding  three.  I  went  off  under 
•>asy  sail  —  one  hundred  and  thirty  drops  a  day  for 
three  days;  on  the  fourth  I  pmnged  at  once  to  eighty 
The  misery  which  I  now  suffered  “took  the  conceit’ 
*ut  of  me,  at  once ;  and  for  about  a  month  I  continued 
E>ff  and  on  about  this  mark ;  then  I  sunk  to  sixty,  ana 
rhe  next  day  to  —  none  at  all.  This  was  the  firsr 


APPENDIX. 


135 


day  for  neaily  ten  years  that  1  had  existed  without 
opium.  I  persevered  in  my  abstinence  for  ninety 
hours ;  that  is,  upwards  of  half  a  week.  Then  I 

took - ask  me  not  how  much  ;  say,  ye  severest,  what 

would  ye  have  done  ?  Then  I  abstained  again ;  then 
took  about  twenty-five  drops ;  then  abstained  ;  and 
so  on. 

Meantime,  the  symptoms  which  attended  my  case 
for  the  first  six  weeks  of  the  experiment  were  these ; 
enormous  irritability  and  excitement  of  the  whole  sys¬ 
tem  ;  the  stomach,  in  particular,  restored  to  a  full 
feeling  of  vitality  and  sensibility,  but  often  in  great 
pain;  unceasing  restlessness  night  and  day;  sleep  —  X 
scarcely  knew  what  it  was  —  three  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four  was  the  utmost  I  had,  and  that  so  agitated 
and  shallow  that  I  heard  every  sound  that  was  near 
me  ;  lower  jaw  constantly  swelling  ;  mouth  ulcerated  ; 
and  many  other  distressing  symptoms  that  would  be 
tedious  to  repeat,  amongst  which,  however,  I  must  men¬ 
tion  one,  because'  it  had  never  failed  to  accompany  any 
attempt  to  renounce  opium,  —  namely,  violent  sternu¬ 
tation.  This  now  became  exceedingly  troublesome ; 
sometimes  lasting  for  two  hours  at  once,  and  recurring 
at  least  twice  or  three  times  a  day.  1  was  not  much 
surprised  at  this,  on  recollecting  what  I  had  somewhere 
neard  or  read,  that  the  membrane  which  lines  the  nos¬ 
trils  is  a  prolongation  of  that  which  lines  the  stomach  ; 
whence,  1  believe,  are  explained  the  inflammatory  ap¬ 
pearances  about  the  nostrils  of  dram-drinkers.  The 
^udrVn  restoration  of  its  original  sensibility  to  the 
stomach  expressed  itself,  «  suppose,  in  this  way.  It  is 
■'ei.’iarkable,  also,  that,  during  the  whole  period  of  yeivt 


136 


APPENDIX 


Shrough  which  1  had  taken  opium,  I  had  never  once 
caught  cold  (as  the  phrase  is),  nor  even  the  slightest 
cough.  But  now  a  violent  cold  attacked  me,  and  s 
sough  soon  after.  In  an  unfinished  fragment  a 
etter  begun  about  this  time  to  - ,  I  find  these 


words:  —  “You  ask  me  to  write  the 


Do 


you  know  Beaumont  and  Fletcher’s  play  of  Thierry 
and  Theodoret?  There  you  will  see  my  case  as  to 
sleep;  nor  is  it  much  of  an  exaggeration  in  other 
features.  I  protest  to  you  that  I  have  a  greater  influx 
of  thoughts  in  one  hour  at  present  than  in  a  whole  year 
under  the  reign  of  opium.  It  seems  as  though  all  the 
thoughts  which  had  been  frozen  up  for  a  decade  of 
years  by  opium  had  now,  according  to  the  old  fable, 
been  thawed  at  once,  such  a  multitude  stream  in  upon 
me  from  all  quarters.  Yet  such  is  my  impatience  and 
hideous  irritability,  that,  for  one  which  I  detain  and 
write  down,  fifty  escape  me.  In  spite  of  my  weariness 
from  suffering  and  want  of  sleep,  I  cannot  stand  still  or 
sit  for  two  minutes  together.  ‘  I  nunc ,  et  versus  tecum 
meditare  canoros .’  ” 

At  this  stage  of  my  experiment  I  sent  to  a  neighbor¬ 
ing  surgeon,  requesting  that  he  would  come  over  to  see 
me.  In  the  evening  he  came,  and  after  briefly  stating 
the  case  to  him,  I  asked  this  question :  Whether  he 
did  not  think  that  the  opium  might  have  acted  as  a 
stimulus  to  the  digestive  organs ;  and  that  the  present 
Mate  of  suffering  in  the  stomach,  which  manifestly  was 
the  cause  of  the  inability  to  sleep,  might  arise  from 
indigestion  ?  His  answer  was,  —  No:  on  the  contrary 
fee  thought  that  the  suffering  was  caused  by  digestion 
tself,,  which  should  naturally  go  on  below  the  con 


JilPENDEX. 


13" 


sciousness,  but  which,  from  the  unnatural  state  of  the 
Etomach,  vitiated  by  so  long  a  use  of  opium,  was  be¬ 
come  distinctly  perceptible.  This  opinion  was  plausi¬ 
ble,  and  the  unintermitting  nature  of  the  suffering  dis¬ 
poses  me  to  think  that  it  was  true ;  for,  if  it  had 
been  any  mere  irregular  affection  of  the  stomach,  it 
should  naturally  have  intermitted  occasionally,  and  con¬ 
stantly  fluctuated  as  to  degree.  The  intention  of  nature, 
as  manifested  in  the  healthy  state,  obviously  is,  to  with¬ 
draw  from  our  notice  all  the  vital  motions,  such  as  the 
circulation  of  the  blood,  the  expansion  and  contraction 
of  the  lungs,  the  peristaltic  action  of  the  stomach,  &c.; 
and  opium,  it  seems,  is  able  in  this,  as  in  other  instances, 
lo  counteract  her  purposes.  By  the  advice  of  the  sur¬ 
geon,  I  tried  bitters.  For  a  short  time  these  greatly 
mitigated  the  feelings  under  which  I  labored ;  but 
about  the  forty-second  day  of  the  experiment  the 
symptoms  already  noticed  began  to  retire,  and  new 
ones  to  arise  of  a  different  and  far  more  tormenting 
class ;  under  these,  with  but  a  few  intervals  of  remis¬ 
sion,  I  have  since  continued  to  suffer.  But  I  dismiss 
them  undescribed  for  two  reasons :  first,  because  the 
mind  revolts  from  retracing  circumstantially  any  suffer¬ 
ings  from  which  it  is  removed  by  too  short  or  by  no 
interval.  To  do  this  with  minuteness  enough  to  make 
the  review  of  any  use,  would  be  indeed  “  infandum 
renovare  dolorem ,”  and  possibly  without  a  sufficient 
motive  :  for,  2dly,  I  doubt  whether  this  iatter  state  be 
iny  way  referable  to  opium,  positive1  y  considered,  or 
even  negatively ;  that  is,  whether  it  is  to  bp  numbered 
amongst  the  last  evils  from  the  direct  action  of  opium 
^ven  amongst  the  earliest  evils  consequent  upon  a 


138 


APPENDIX. 


want  of  opium  in  a  system  long  deranged  by  its  usa 
Certainly  one  part  of  the  symptoms  might  be  ac 
counted  for  from  the  time  of  year  (August) ;  for 
though  the  summer  was  not  a  hot  one,  yet  in  any  cas« 
the  sum  of  all  the  heat  funded  (if  one  may  say  so) 
during  the  previous  months,  added  to  the  existing  heat 
of  that  month,  naturally  renders  August  in  its  better 
half  the  hottest  part  of  the  year;  and  it  so  happened 
that  the  excessive  perspiration,  which  even  at  Christmas 
attends  any  great  reduction  in  the  daily  quantum  of 
opium,  and  which  in  July  was  so  violent  as  to  oblige 
me  to  use  a  bath  five  or  six  times  a  day,  had  about  the 
setting  in  of  the  hottest  season  wholly  retired,  on  which 
account  any  bad  effect  of  the  heat  might  be  the  more 
unmitigated.  Another  symptom,  namely,  what  in  my 
ignorance  I  call  internal  rheumatism  (sometimes  affecting 
the  shoulders,  &c.,  but  more  often  appearing  to  be  sealed 
in  the  stomach),  seemed  again  less  probably  attributable? 
to  the  opium,  or  the  want  of  opium,  than  to  the  dampness 
of  the  housed  which  I  inhabit,  which  had  about  that 
time  attained  its  maximum,  July  having  been,  as  usual 
a  month  of  incessant  rain  in  our  most  rainy  part  oi 
England. 

Under  these  reasons  for  doubting  whether  opium 
had  any  connection  with  the  latter  stage  of  my  bodily 


*  In  saying  this,  I  meant  no  disrespect  to  the  individual  house,  as 
the  reader  will  understand  when  I  tell  h.m  that,  with  the  exception 
pf  one  or  two  princely  mansions,  and  some  few  inferior  ones  tha* 
feave  been  coated  witn  Roman  cement,  I  am  not  acquainted  with 
any  house  in  this  mountainous  district  which  is  wholly  water 
oroof.  The  architecture  of  books,  I  flatter  myself,  is  conducted  ot 
rust  principles  in  this  country  ;  but  for  any  other  architecture,  i*  fa 
A  &  barbarous  state,  and,  whst  is  worse,  in  a  retrograde  state 


AFPENDIX. 


139 


RTfetchedness  —  (except,  indeed,  as  an  occasional  cause, 
as  having  left  the  body  weaker  and  more  crazy,  and  thus 
predisposed  to  any  mal-influence  whatever), — I  wil¬ 
lingly  spare  my  reader  all  description  of  it :  let  it  perish 
to  him ;  and  would  that  I  could  as  easily  say,  let  it  per¬ 
ish  to  my  own  remembrances,  that  any  future  hours  of 
tranquillity  may  not  be  disturbed  by  too  vivid  an  ideal  of 
possible  human  misery  ! 

So  much  for  the  sequel  of  my  experiment ;  as  to  the 
former  stage,  in  which  properly  lies  the  experiment  and 
its  application  to  other  cases,  I  must  request  my  reader 
not  to  forget  the  reasons  for  which  I  have  recorded  it. 
These  were  two.  1st,  a  belief  that  I  might  add  some 
trifle  to  the  history  of  opium  as  a  medical  agent ;  in  this 
1  am  aware  that  I  have  not  at  all  fulfilled  my  own  inten¬ 
tions,  in  consequence  of  the  torpor  of  mind,  pain  of  body 
and  extreme  disgust  to  the  subject,  which  besieged  me 
whilst  writing  that  part  of  my  paper ;  which  part  being 
immediately  sent  off  to  the  press  (distant  about  five 
degrees  of  latitude),  cannot  be  corrected  or  improved. 
But  from  this  account,  rambling  as  it  may  be,  it  is  evi* * 
dent  that  thus  much  of  benefit  may  arise  to  the  persons 
most  interested  in  such  a  history  of  opium,  —  namely, 
to  opium-eaters  in  general,  —  that  it  establishes,  for  their 
consolation  and  encouragement,  the  fact  that  opium  may 
oe  renounced,  and  without  greater  sufferings  than  an 
ordinary  resolution  may  support ;  and  by  a  pretty  rapid 
course*  of  descent. 

♦  On  winch  last  notice  I  would  remark  hat  mine  was  too  rapid, 

*nd  the  suffering  therefore  needlessly  aggravated  ;  or  rather,  per- 
^aps,  it  was  not  sufficiently  continuous  and  equably  gradm*t*d. 
But,  that  the  reader  may  judge'  for  himself,  and,  above  all,  thaf 


140 


APPENDIX. 


To  communicate  this  result  of  my  experiment,  was 
ny  fcremost  purpose.  2dly,  as  a  purpose  collateral  tc 


the  opium-eater,  who  is  preparing  to  retire  from  business,  maj 
ttave  every  sort  of  information  before  him,  I  subjoin  my  diary. 

FIRST  WEEK.  SECOND  WEEK. 


Drops  of  Laud.  Ercps  cf  Lauc 

jtiond.  June  24  .  130  Mond.  July  1 . 80 

“  25  140  “2 . 80 

“  26  130  “3 . 90 

‘  27  80  “4 . 100 

“  28  .  80  “  5  .  .  .  .  80 

“  29  80  “6 . 80 

“  30  80  “7 . 80 

THIRD  WEEK.  FOURTH  WEEK. 

Drops  of  Laud.  Drops  of  Laud. 

Blond.  July  8  .  300  Mond.  July  15  . . 76 

“  9  ......  60  “16 . 731 

“  10  \  “17 . 734 

“11  F  Hiatus  in  “18 . 70 

“  12  f  MS.  “  19 . 240 

“  13  )  “  20  .....  80 

“14 . 76  “21 . 350 


FIFTH  WEEK. 

Drops  of  Laud. 

Mond.  July  22  . .  60 

“  23.. . none 

“  24 . none 

“  25 . none 

“  26  .  200 

“  27 . none 

What  mean  these  abrupt  relapses,  the  reader  will  ask,  perhaps,  to 
*uch  numbers  as  300,  350,  &c.  ?  The  impulse  to  these  relapses  was 
tnere  infirmity  of  purpose  ;  the  motive ,  where  any  motive  blended 
with  this  impulse,  was  either  the  principle  of  li  reculer  pour  mieua 
tauter — (for  under  the  torpor  of  a  large  dose,  which  lasted  for  a 
lay  or  two,  a  less  quantity  satisfied  the  stomach,  which,  on  awaking 
lanud  itself  uartlv  accustomed  to  this  new  ration),  —  or  else  it  wa? 


APPENDIX. 


i4\ 

thi#  I  wished  to  explain  how  it  had  become  impossible 
for  me  to  compose  a  Third  Part  in  time  to  accompany 
this  republication  :  for  during  the  very  time  of  this 
experiment,  the  proof-sheets  of  this  reprint  were  sent 
to  me  from  London ; .  and  such  was  my  inability  to 
expand  or  to  improve  them,  that  I  could  not  even  bear 
to  read  them  over  with  attention  enough  to  notice  the 
press  errors,  or  to  correct  any  verbal  inaccuracies. 
These  were  my  reasons  for  troubling  my  reader  with 
any  record,  long  or  short,  of  experiments  relating  to  so 
truly  base  a  subject  as  my  own  body  ;  and  I  am  ear¬ 
nest  with  the  reader,  that  he  will  not  forget  them,  or  sg 
far  misapprehend  me  as  to  believe  it  possible  that  I  would 
condescend  to  so  rascally  a  subject  for  its  own  sake,  or, 
indeed,  for  any  less  object  than  that  of  general  benefit 
to  others.  Such  an  animal  as  the  self-observing  vale¬ 
tudinarian,  I  know  there  is.  I  have  met  him  myself 
occasionally,  and  1  know  that  he  is  the  worst  imagin¬ 
able  heautontimoroamenos ;  aggravating  and  sustaining, 
by  calling  into  distinct  consciousness,  every  symptom 
that  would  else,  perhaps,  under  a  different  direction 
given  to  the  thoughts,  become  evanescent.  But  as  to 
myself,  so  profound  is  my  contempt  for  this  undigni¬ 
fied  and  selfish  habit,  that  I  could  as  little  condescend 
to  it  as  I  could  to  spend  my  time  in  watching  a  pool 
servant-girl,  to  whom  at  this  moment  I  hear  some  lad 
or  other  making  love  at  the  back  of  my  house.  Is  il 
ror  a  Transcendental  philosopher  to  feel  any  curiosity 

this  principle  —  that  of  sufferings  otherwise  equal,  those  will  o 
borne  best  which  meet  with  a  mood  of  anger;  now,  whenever 
isi  tuded  to  any  large  dose,  I  was  furiously  incensed  on  the  folia# 
tag  day,  and  could  then  have  borne  anything. 


.42 


APPENDED. 


jn  such  an  occasion  ?  Or  can  I,  whose  life  is  worth 
only  eight  and  a  half  years’  purchase,  be  supposed 
to  have  leisure  for  such  trivial  employments  ?  How 
ever,  to  put  this  out  of  question,  I  shall  say  one  thing 
which  will,  perhaps,  shock  some  readers ;  but  I  am 
Eure  it  ought  not  to  do  so,  considering  the  motives  on 
which  I  say  it.  No  man,  1  suppose,  employs  much  of 
his  time  on  the  phenomena  of  his  own  body  without 
some  regard  for  it;  whereas  the  reader  sees  that,  so 
far  from  looking  upon  mine  with  any  complacency  or 
regard,  I  hate  it  and  make  it  the  object  of  my  bitter 
ridicule  and  contempt ;  and  I  should  not  be  displeased 
to  know  that  the  last  indignities  which  the  law  indicts 
upon  the  bodies  of  the  worst  malefactors  might  here¬ 
after  fall  upon  it.  And  in  testification  of  my  sincerity 
in  saying  this,  I  shall  make  the  following  offer.  Like 
other  men,  I  have  particular  fancies  about  the  place  of 
my  burial;  having  lived  chiefly  in  a  mountainous  re¬ 
gion,  I  rather  cleave  to  the  conceit  that  a  grave  in  a 
green  church-yard  amongst  the  ancient  and  solitary 
hills  will  be  a  sublimer  and  more  tranquil  place  of 
repose  for  a  philosopher  than  any  in  the  hideous  Go] 
gothas  of  London.  Yet,  if  the  gentlemen  of  Surgeons’ 
Hall  think  that  any  benefit  can  redound  to  their  science 
from  inspecting  the  appearances  in  the  body  of  an 
opium-eater,  let  them  speak  but  a  word,  and  I  will 
take  care  that  mine  shall  be  legally  secured  to  them 
—  that  is,  as  soon  as  I  have  done  with  it  myself.  Let 
them  not  hesitate  to  express  their  wishes  upon  any 
scruples  of  false  delicacy  and  consideration  for  my 
feelings ;  I  assure  them  that  they  will  do  me  too  much 
fconor  by  “  demonstrating  ”  on  such  a  crazy  body  as 


APPENDIX. 


h;j 


mine  ;  and  it  will  give  me  pleasure  to  anticipate  this 
posthumous  revenge  and  insult  inflicted  upon  that  which 
has  caused  me  so  much  suffering  in  this  life.  Such  be¬ 
quests  are  not  common  ;  reversionary  benefits  contingent 
upon  the  death  of  the  testator  are  indeed  dangerous  to 
announce  in  many  cases.  Of  this  we  have  a  remarka¬ 
ble  instance  in  the  habits  of  a  Roman  prince,  who  used, 
upon  any  notification  made  to  him  by  rich  persons,  that 
they  had  left  him  a  handsome  estate  in  their  wills,  to 
express  his  entire  satisfaction  at  such  arrangements,  and 
his  gracious  acceptance  of  those  royal  legacies ;  but  then, 
if  the  testators  neglected  to  give  him  immediate  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  property,  —  if  they  traitorously  “  persisted  i.j 
living  ”  ( si  vivere  per  sever  arent,  as  Suetonius  expresses 
it),  he  was  highly  provoked,  and  took  his  measures 
accordingly.  In  those  times,  and  from  one  of  the  worst 
of  the  Caesars,  we  might  expect  such  conduct ;  but  I  am 
sure  that,  rrom  English  surgeons  at  this  day,  I  need  look 
fcr  no  expressions  of  impatience,  or  of  any  other  feelings 
but  such  as  are  answerable  to  that  pure  love  of  science, 
and  all  its  inxerests,  which  induces  me  to  make  such  an 
offer. 

Sept  30 to ,  1922. 


8USPIRIA  DE  PR0FUNDI8: 


BEING  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE 


3NIESSI0NS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPHJM-IATM 


SUSPIRIA  DE  PROFUMJIS: 

BEING  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE 

M  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.®9 


INTRODU CTOK Y  NOTICE 

In  1821,  as  a  contribution  to  a  periodical  work,  —  I& 
1322,  as  a  separate  volume,  —  appeared  the  “  Confes- 
lions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater.”  The  object  of  that 
work  was  to  reveal  something  of  the  grandeur  which 
belongs  potentially  to  human  dreams.  Whatever  may 
be  the  number  of  those  in  whom  this  faculty  of  dream 
mg  splendidly  can  be  supposed  to  lurk,  there  are  not 
perhaps  very  many  in  whom  it  is  developed.  He 
whose  talk  is  of  oxen,  will  probably  dream  of  oxen  , 
and  the  condition  of  human  life,  which  yokes  so  vast  a 
majority  to  a  daily  experience  incompatible  with  muck 
elevation  of  thought,  oftentimes  neutralizes  the  tone  of 
grandeur  in  the  reproductive  faculty  of  dreaming,  even 
for  those  whose  minds  are  populous  with  solemn  im¬ 
agery.  Habitually  to  dream  magnificently,  a  man  must 
have  a  constitutional  determination  to  reverie.  This  in 
the  first  place,  and  even  this,  where  it  exists  strongly 


148 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


is  too  much  liable  to  disturbance  from  the  gathering 
agitation  of  our  present  English  life.  Already,  in  this 
year  1845,  what  by  the  procession  through  fifty  years 
of  mighty  revolutions  amongst  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth,  what  by  the  continual  development  of  vas 
physical  agencies, — steam  in  all  its  applications,  light 
getting  under  harness  as  a  slave  for  man,*  powers 
from  heaven  descending  upon  education  and  accelera¬ 
tions  of  the  press,  powers  from  hell  (as  it  might  seem 
but  these  also  celestial)  coming  round  upon  artillery 
and  the  forces  of  destruction,  —  the  eye  of  the  calmest 
observer  is  troubled  ;  the  brain  is  haunted  as  if  by 
some  jealousy  of  ghostly  beings  moving  amongst  us  • 
and  it  becomes  too  evident  that,  unless  this  colossal 
pace  of  advance  can  be  retarded  (a  thing  not  to  be 
expected),  or,  which  is  happily  more  probable,  can  be  met 
by  counter  forces  of  corresponding  magnitude,  forces  in 
the  direction  of  religion  or  profound  philosophy,  that 
shall  radiate  centrifugally  against  this  storm  of  life  so 
perilously  centripetal  towards  the  vortex  of  the  merely 
human,  left  to  itself,  the  natural  tendency  of  so  chaotic 
a  tumult  must  be  to  evil ;  for  some  minds  to  lunacy, 
for  others  to  a  reiigency  of  fleshly  torpor.  How  much 
this  fierce  condition  of  eternal  hurry  upon  an  arena  too 
exclusively  human  in  its  interests  is  likely  to  defeat 
the  grandeur  which  is  latent  in  all  men,  may  be  seen 
in  the  ordinary  effect  from  living  too  constantly  in 
?aried  company.  The  word  dissipation ,  in  one  of  its 
uses,  expresses  that  effect ;  the  action  of  thought  and 
feeling  is  toe  much  dissipated  and  squandered.  T« 


*  Daguerreotype,  &c. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  I'l9 

^concentrate  them  into  meditative  habits,  a  nec^-  r 
is  felt  by  all  observing  persons  for  sometimes  re  tin  4 
from  crowds.  No  man  ever  will  unfold  the  capacities 
of  his  own  intellect  who  does  not  at  least  checker  his 
.ife  with  solitude.  How  much  solitude,  so  much  power. 
Or,  if  not  true  in  that  rigor  of  expression,  to  this  formula 
undoubtedly  it  is  that  the  wise  rule  of  life  must  approx¬ 
imate. 

Among  the  powers  in  man  which  suffer  by  this  too 
intense  life  of  the  social  instincts,  none  suffers  more  than 
the  power  of  dreaming.  Let  no  man  think  this  a  trifle 
The  machinery  for  dreaming  planted  in  the  human 
brain  was  not  planted  for  nothing.  That  faculty,  in 
alliance  with  the  mystery  of  darkness,  is  the  one  great 
tube  through  which  man  communicates  with  the  shad¬ 
owy.  And  the  dreaming  organ,  in  connection  with  the 
heart,  the  eye  and  the  ear,  compose  the  magnificent 
apparatus  which  forces  the  infinite  into  the  chambers 
of  a  human  brain,  and  throws  dark  reflections  from 
eternities  below  all  life  upon  the  mirrors  of  the  sleeping 
mind. 

But  if  this  faculty  suffers  from  the  decay  of  solitude, 
which  is  becoming  a  visionary  idea  in  England,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  certain  that  some  merely  physical  agen¬ 
cies  can  and  do  assist  the  faculty  of  dreaming  almost 
Sreternaturally.  Amongst  these  is  intense  exercise  ;  to 
tome  extent  at  least,  and  for  some  persons  ;  but  beyond 
all  others  is  opium,  which  indeed  seems  to  possess  a  spe 
zijic  power  in  that  direction  ;  not  merely  for  exalting  the 
colors  of  dream-scefiery,  but  for  deepening  its  shadows, 
and,  above  all,  for  strengthening  the  sense  of  its  fearfut 
realities 


150 


A  SEQUEL  TO  \HE  CONFESSIONS 


The  Opium  Confessions  were  written  with  some  sligh' 
secondary  purpose  of  exposing  this  specific  power  of 
opium  upon  the  faculty  of  dreaming,  but  much  more  with 
the  purpose  of  displaying  the  faculty  itself ;  and  the  out« 
line  of  the  work  travelled  in  this  course.  Supposing  a 
reader  acquainted  with  the  true  object  of  the  Confes¬ 
sions  as  here  stated,  namely,  the  revelation  of  dreaming 
to  have  put  this  question  : 

“  But  how  came  you  to  dream  more  splendidly  than 
others  ?  ” 

The  answer  would  have  been  — 

“  Because  ( preemissis  preemittendis)  J  took  excessive 
quantities  of  opium.” 

Secondly,  suppose  him  to  say,  “  But  how  came  you 
to  take  opium  in  this  excess  ?  ” 

The  answer  to  that  would  be,  “  Because  some  early 
events  in  my  life  had  left  a  weakness  in  one  organ 
which  required  (or  seemed  to  require)  that  stimu¬ 
lant.” 

Then,  because  the  opium  dreams  could  not  always 
have  been  understood  without  a  knowledge  of  these 
events,  it  became  necessary  to  relate  them.  Nowr,  these 
two  questions  and  answers  exhibit  the  law  of  the  work; 
that  is,  the  principle  which  determined  its  form,  but  pre¬ 
cisely  in  the  inverse  or  regressive  order.  The  work 
tself  opened  with  the  narration  of  my  early  adventures. 
These,  in  the  natural  order  of  succession,  led  to  the  opium 
ws  a  resource  for  healing  their  consequences;  and  the 
npium  a  s  naturally  led  to  the  dreams.  But  in  the  syn 
tketic  order  of  presenting  the  facts,  what  atood  last  m 
the  succession  of  development  stood  first  in  the  order  o. 
cy  purposes 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


15 


At  the  dose  of  tnis  little  work,  the  reader  was  in 
*tructed  to  believe,  and  truly  instructed,  that  I  had 
mastered  the  tyranny  of  opium.  The  fact  is,  that 
Iwice  I  mastered  it,  and  by  efforts  even  more  prodi¬ 
gious  in  the  second  of  these  cases- than  in  the  first. 
But  one  error  I  committed  in  both.  I  did  not  connect 
with  the  abstinence  from  opium,  so  trying  to  the  forti¬ 
tude  under  any  circumstances,  that  enormity  of  excess 
which  (as  I  have  since  learned)  is  the  one  sole  re¬ 
source  for  making  it  endurable.  I  overlooked,  m  those 
days,  the  one  sine  qua  non  for  making  the  triumph 
permanent.  Twice  I  sank,  twice  I  rose  again.  A  third 
time  I  sank;  partly  from  the  cause  mentioned  (the  over¬ 
sight  as  to  exercise),  partly  from  other  causes,  on  which 
it  avails  not  now  to  trouble  the  reader.  I  could  moral¬ 
ize,  if  I  chose ;  and  perhaps  he  will  moralize,  whether 
I  choose  it  or  not.  But,  in  the  mean  time,  neither  of 
us  is  acquainted  properly  with  the  circumstances  of 
the  case  :  1,  from  natural  bias  of  judgment,  not  alto¬ 

gether  acquainted ;  and  he  (with  his  permission)  not 
at  all. 

During  this  third  prostration  before  the  dark  idol, 
and  after  some  years,  new  and  monstrous  phenomena 
began  slowly  to  arise.  For  a  time,  these  were  neg¬ 
lected  as  accidents,  or  palliated  by  such  remedies  as 
[  knew  of.  But  when  I  could  no  longer  conceal  from 
myself  that  these  dreadful  symptoms  were  moving 
forward  forever,  by  a  pace  steadily,  solemnly,  anil 
^cuably  increasing,  I  endeavored,  with  some  feeling 
vf  panic,  for  a  third  tine  to  retrace  my  steps.  Bui 
had  not  reversed  my  motions  for  many  weeks, 
before  1  became  profoundly  aware  that  this  was  ira 


152 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


possible.  Or,  in  the  imagery  of  my  dreams,  which  trams* 
lated  everything  into  their  own  language,  I  saw  through 
vast  avenues  of  g1r>om  those  towering  gates  of  ingress 
which  hitherto  had  always  seemed  to  stand  open,  now  at 
last  barred  against  my  retreat,  and  hung  with  funeraJ 
crape. 

As  applicable  to  this  tremendous  situation  (the  situa¬ 
tion  of  one  escaping  by  some  refluent  current  from  the 
maelstrom  roaring  for  him  in  the  distance,  who  finds 
suddenly  that  this  current  is  but  an  eddy,  wheeling 
round  upon  the  same  maelstrom),  I  have  since  remem¬ 
bered  a  striking  incident  in  a  modern  novel.  A  lady 
abbess  of  a  convent,  herself  suspected  of  Protestant 
leanings,  and  in  that  way  already  disarmed  of  all 
effectual  power,  finds  one  of  her  own  nuns  (whom  she 
knows  to  be  innocent)  accused  of  an  offence  leading 
to  the  most  terrific  of  punishments.  The  nun  will  be 
immured  alive,  if  she  is  found  guilty ;  and  there  is  no 
chance  that  she  will  not,  for  the  evidence  against  her  is 
stiong,  unless  something  were  made  known  that  cannot 
be  mwde  known ;  and  the  judges  are  hostile.  All  fol¬ 
lows  in  the  order  of  the  reader’s  fears.  The  witnesses 
depose  ;  the  evidence  is  without  effectual  contradiction : 
the  conviction  is  declared  ;  the  judgment  is  delivered ; 
nothing  remains  but  to  see  execution  done.  At  this 

isis,  the  abbess,  alarmed  too  late  for  effectual  interpo¬ 
lation,  considers  with  herself  that,  according  to  the  reg¬ 
ular  forms,  there  will  be  one  single  night  open,  during 
which  the  prisoner  cannot  be  withdrawn  from  her  own 
separate  jurisdiction.  This  one  night,  therefore,  she 
will  use,  at  any  hazard  to  herself,  for  the  salvation  of 
Her  friend.  At  midnight,  when  all  is  hushed  in  thi 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


153 


foment,  the  lady  traverses  the  passages  which  lead  to 
the  cells  of  prisoners.  She  bears  a  master-key  under 
her  professional  habit.  As  this  will  open  every  door  in 
every  corridor,  already,  by  anticipation,  she  feels  the 
luxury  of  holding  her  emancipated  friend  within  her 
arms.  Suddenly  she  has  reached  the  door;  she  descries 
a  dusky  object ;  she  raises  her  lamp,  and,  ranged  withm 
the  recess  of  the  entrance,  she  beholds  the  funeral  ban¬ 
ner  of  the  holy  office,  and  the  black  robes  of  its  inexor¬ 
able  officials. 

I  apprehend  that,  in  a  situation  such  as  this,  suppos¬ 
ing  it  a  real  one,  the  lady  abbess  would  not  start,  would 
not  show  any  marks  externally  of  consternation  or 
horror.  The  case  was  beyond  that.  The  sentiment 
which  attends  the  sudden  revelation  that  all  is  lost 
silently  is  gathered  up  into  the  heart ;  it  is  too  deep  for 
gestures  or  for  words ;  and  no  part  of  it  passes  to  the 
outside.  Were  the  ruin  conditional,  or  were  it  in  any 
point  doubtful,  it  would  be  natural  to  utter  ejaculations 
and  to  seek  sympathy.  But  where  the  ruin  is  under¬ 
stood  to  be  absolute,  where  sympathy  cannot  be  conso¬ 
lation,  and  counsel  cannot  be  hope,  this  is  otherwise. 
The  voice  perishes ;  the  gestures  are  frozen ;  and  the 
spirit  of  man  flies  back  upon  its  own  centre.  I,  at 
.east,  upon  seeing  those  awful  gates  closed  and  hung 
with  draperies  of  woe,  as  for  a  death  already  past, 
spoke  not,  nor  started,  nor  groaned.  One  profouud 
»igh  ascended  from  my  heart,  and  I  was  silent  fol 
i&ys. 

It  is  the  record  of  this  third  or  final  stage  of  opium, 
is  one  differing  in  something  more  than  degree  from 
the  others,  that  I  am  now  undertaking.  But  a  scrupk 


15 4  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

arises  as  to  the  true  interpretation  of  these  iinal  symp> 
toms.  I  have  elsewhere  explained,  that  it  was  no 
particular  purpose  of  mine,  and  why  it  was  no  par* 
dcular  purpose,  to  warn  other  opium-eaters.  Still,  as 
some  few  persons  may  use  the  record  in  that  way,  it 
becomes  a  matter  of  interest  to  ascertain  how  far  it 
is  likely,  that,  even  with  the  same  excesses,  other 
<5pium-eaters  could  fall  into  the  same  condition.  I  do 
not  mean  to  lay  a  stress  upon  any  supposed  idiosyn¬ 
crasy  in  myself.  Possibly  every  man  has  an  idiosyn¬ 
crasy.  In  some  things,  undoubtedly,  he  has.  For  no 
man  ever  yet  resembled  another  man  so  far,  as  not  to 
differ  from  him  in  features  innumerable  of  his  inner 
nature.  But  what  I  pc^nt  to  are  not  peculiarities  of 
temperament  or  of  organization,  so  much  as  peculiar 
circumstances  and  incidents  through  which  my  own 
separate  experience  had  revolved.  Some  of  these  were 
of  a  nature  to  alter  the  whole  economy  of  my  mind. 
Great  convulsions,  from  whatever  cause,  —  from  con¬ 
science,  from  fear,  from  grief,  from  struggles  of  the 
will,  —  sometimes,  in  passing  away  themselves,  do  not 
carry  off  the  changes  which  they  have  worked.  All 
.he  agitations  of  this  magnitude  which  a  man  may  have 
threaded  in  his  life,  he  neither  ought  to  report,  nor 
wuld  report.  But  one  which  affected  my  childhood  is 
&  privileged  exception.  It  is  privileged  as  a  proper 
communication  for  a  stranger’s  ear;  because,  though 
relating  to  a  man’s  proper  self,  it  is  a  self  so  far 
removed  from  his  present  self  as  to  wound  no  feel¬ 
ings  of  delicacy  or  just  reserve.  It  is  privileged,  also 
w  a  proper  subject  for  the  sympathy  of  the  narrator 
in  adult  sympathizes  with  himself  in  childhoo » 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


155 


because  he  is  ffie  same,,  and  because  (being  the  same) 
yet  he  is  not  the  same.  He  acknowledges  the  deep, 
mysterious  identity  between  himself,  as  adult  and 
as  infant,  for  the  ground  of  his  sympathy ;  and  yet, 
with  this  general  agreement,  and  necessity  of  agree- 
ment,  he  feels  the  differences  between  his  two  selves 
as  the  main  quickeners  of  his  sympathy.  He  pities 
the  infirmities,  as  they  arise  to  light  in  his  young  fore* 
runner,  which  now,  perhaps,  he  does  not  share ;  ne 
looks  indulgently  upon  the  errors  of  the  understanding, 
cr  limitations  of  view  which  now  he  has  long  survived ; 
and  sometimes,  also,  he  honors  in  the  infant  that  recti* 
tude  of  will  which,  under  some  temptations,  he  may 
since  have  felt  it  so  difficult  to  maintain. 

The  particular  case  to  which  I  refer  in  my  own  child¬ 
hood  was  one  of  intolerable  grief;  a  trial,  in  fact, 
more  severe  than  many  people  at  any  age  are  called 
upon  to  stand.  The  relation  in  which  the  case  stands 
to  my  latter  opium  experiences  is  this:  —  Those  vast 
clouds  of  gloomy  grandeur  which  overhung  my  dreams 
at  all  stages  of  opium,  but  which  grew  into  the  darkest 
of  miseries  in  the  last,  and  that  haunting  of  the  human 
face,  which  latterly  towered  into  a  curse,  —  were  they 
not  partly  derived  from  this  childish  experience  ?  It 
is  certain  that,  from  the  essential  solitude  in  which 
my  childhood  was  passed ;  from  the  depth  of  my  sen¬ 
sibility;  from  the  exaltation  of  this  by  the  resistance  of 
in  intellect  too  prematurely  developed ;  it  resulted  that 
i?ie  terrific  grief  which  I  passed  through  drove  a  shaft 
'hi  me  into  the  worlds  of  death  and  darkness  which 
tevt'T  again  closed,  and  through  which  it  might  be  said 
liat  I  ascended  and  descended  at  will,  according  to  th« 


156 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSON^ 


temper  rl  my  spirits.  Some  of  the  phenomena  deval 
aped  in  my  dream-scenery,  undoubtedly,  do  but  repeat 
the  experiences  of  childhood ;  and  others  seem  likely 
to  have  been  growths  and  fructifications  from  seeds  at 
that  time  sown. 

The  reasons,  therefore,  for  prefixing  some  account 
of  a  “  passage  ”  in  childhood  to  this  record  of  a  dread¬ 
ful  visitation  from  opium  excess  are,  1st,  That,  in 
coloring,  it  harmonizes  with  that  record,  and,  there¬ 
fore,  is  related  to  it  at  least  in  point  of  feeling;  2dly, 
That,  possibly,  it  was  in  part  the  origin  of  some  features 
in  that  record,  and  so  far  is  related  to  it  in  logic ; 
3dly,  That,  the  final  assault  of  opium  being  of  a  nature 
to  challenge  the  attention  of  medical  men,  it  is  import¬ 
ant  to  clear  away  all  doubts  and  scruples  which  can 
gather  about  the  roots  of  such  a  malady.  Was  it 
opium,  or  was  it  opium  in  combination  with  something 
else,  that  raised  these  storms  ? 

Some  cynical  reader  will  object,  that  for  this  last 
Durpose  it  would  have  been  sufficient  to  state  the  fact, 
without  rehearsing  in  extenso  the  particulars  of  that 
case  in  childhood.  But  the  reader  of  more  kindness 
(for  a  surly  reader  is  always  a  bad  critic)  will  also  have 
more  discernment ;  and  he  will  perceive  that  it  is  not 
for  the  mere  facts  that  the  case  is  reported,  but  be¬ 
cause  these  facts  move  through  a  wilderness  of  natural 
thoughts  or  feelings :  some  in  the  child  who  suffers 
some  in  the  man  who  reports ;  but  all  so  far  interesting 
as  they  relate  to  solemn  objects.  Meantime,  the  objeo 
tion  of  the  sullen  critic  reminds  me  of  a  scene  some¬ 
times  beheld  at  the  English  lakes.  Figure  to  yourself 
sn  energetic  tourist,  who  protests  everywhere  that  he 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATEE. 


15*? 


■fomes  only  to  see  the  lakes.  He  has  no  business  what- 
ever;  he  is  not  searching  for  any  recreant  indorser  of 
a  bill,  but  simply  in  search  of  the  picturesque.  Yet 
this  man  adjures  every  landlord,  “  by  the  virtue  of  his 
oath,”  to  tell  him,  and,  as  he  hopes  for  peace  in  this 
world,  to  tell  him  truly,  which  is  the  nearest  road  to 
Keswick.  Next,  he  applies  to  the  postilions,  —  the 
Westmoreland  postilions  always  fly  down  hills  at  full 
stretch  without  locking,  —  but,  nevertheless,  in  the  full 
career  of  their  fiery  race,  our  picturesque  man  lets 
down  the  glasses,  pulls  up  four  horses  and  two  postil¬ 
ions,  at  the  risk  of  six  necks  and  twenty  legs,  adjuring 
them  to  reveal  whether  they  are  taking  the  shortest 
road.  Finally,  he  descries  my  unworthy  self  upon  the 
road ;  and,  instantly  stopping  his  flying  equipage,  he 
demands  of  me  (as  one  whom  he  believes  to  be  a 
scholar  and  a  man  of  honor)  whether  there  is  not, 
in  the  possibility  of  things,  a  shorter  cut  to  Keswick. 
Now,  the  answer  which  rises  to  the  lips  of  landlord, 
two  postilions,  and  myself,  is  this :  “  Most  excellent 
stranger,  as  you  come  to  the  lakes  simply  to  see 
their  loveliness,  might  it  not  be  as  well  to  ask  after 
the  most  beautiful  road,  rather  than  the  shortest  ? 
Because,  if  abstract  shortness,  if  to  brevity,  is  your 
object,  then  the  shortest  of  all  possible  tours  would 
seem,  with  submission,  never  to  have  left  London.” 
On  the  same  principle,  I  tell  my  critic  that  the  whole 
course  of  this  narrative  resembles,  and  was  meant  to 
esemble,  a  caduccus  wreathed  about  with  meandering 
ornaments,  or  the  shaft  of  a  tree’s  stem  hung  round 
tnd  surmounted  with  some  vagrant  parasitical  plant 
The  mere  medical  subject  of  the  opium  answers  ttf 


158  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

file  diy,  withered  pole,  which  shoots  all  the  rings 
of  the  lowering  plants,  and  seems  to  do  so  by 'some 
dexterity  of  its  own ;  whereas,  in  fact,  the  plant  and 
its  tendrils  have  curled  round  the  sullen  cylinder  by 
mere  luxuriance  of  theirs.  Just  as  in  .Cheapside,  if 
you  look  right  and  left,  the  streets  so  narrow,  that  lead 
off  at  right  angles,  seem  quarried  and  blasted  out  of 
some  Babylonian  brick-kiln;  bored,  not  raised  artifi¬ 
cially  by  the  builder’s  hand.  But,  if  you  inquire- of 
the  worthy  men  who  live  in  that  neighborhood,  you 
will  find  it  unanimously  deposed  —  that  not  the  streetJ 
were  quarried  out  of  the  bricks,  but,  on  the  contrary 
(most  ridiculous  as  it  seems),  that  the  bricks  have 
supervened  upon  the  streets. 

The  streets  did  not  intrude  amongst  the  bricks,  but 
those  cursed  bricks  came  to  imprison  the  streets. 
So,  also,  the  ugly  pole  —  hop-pole,  vine-pole,  espa¬ 
lier,  no  matter  what  —  is  there  only  for  support.  Not 
the  flowers  are  for  the  pole,  but  the  pole  is  for  the 
/lowers.  Upon  the  same  analogy,  view  me  as  one 
(in  the  words  of  a  true  and  most  impassioned  poet  *) 
“  viridantem  Jloribus  hastas  ”  —  making  verdant,  and 
gay  with  the  life  of  flowers,  murderous  spears  and 
halberts  —  things  that  express  death  in  their  origin 
v  being  made  from  dead  substances  that  once  had  lived 
in  forests),  things  that  express  ruin  in  their  use.  The 
true  object  in  my  “  Opium  Confessions  ”  is  not  the 
naked  physiological  theme,  —  on  the  contrary,  that  is 
the  ugly  pole,  the  murderous  spear,  the  halbert,  —  bu 
those  wandering  musical  variations  upon  the  theme,— 


*  Valerius  F.accus. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM  EAT2R.  lo9 

those  parasitical  thoughts,  feelings,  digressions,  which 
elimb  up  with  bells  and  blossoms  round  about  the  arid 
stock;  ramble  away  from  it  at  times  with  perhaps 
too  rank  a  luxuriance ;  but  at  the  same  time,  by  the 
eternal  interest  attached  to  the  subjects  of  these  digres¬ 
sions,  no  matter  what  were  the  execution,  spread,  a 
glory  over  incidents  that  for  themselves  w&uld 
fan  nothing. 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSION 


lfiO 


PART  I. 


THE  AFFLICTION  OF  CHILDHOOD. 

£t  is  so  painful  to  a  lover  of  open-hearted  sincerity 
that  any  indirect  traits  of  vanity  should  even  seem  to 
creep  into  records  of  profound  passion ;  and  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  so  impossible,  without  an  unnatural 
restraint  upon  the  freedom  of  the  narrative,  to  prevent 
oblique  gleams  reaching  the  reader  from  such  circum¬ 
stances  of  luxury  or  elegance  as  did  really  surround 
my  childhood,  that  on  all  accounts  I  think  it  better  to 
tell  him,  from  the  first,  with  the  simplicity  of  truth,  in 
what  order  of  society  my  family  moved  at  the  time 
from  which  this  preliminary  narrative  is  dated.  Other¬ 
wise  it  would  happen  that,  merely  by  moving  truly 
and  faithfully  through  the  circumstances  of  this  early 
experience,  I  could  hardly  prevent  the  reader  from 
receiving  an  impression  as  of  some  higher  rank  than 
did  really  belong  to  my  family.  My  father  was  a 
merchant ;  not  in  the  sense  of  Scotland,  where  it 
means  a  man  who  sells  groceries  in  a  cellar,  but  in  the 
English  sense,  a  sense  severely  exclusive  —  namely 
he  was  a  man  engaged  in  foreign  commerce,  and  no 
ether ;  therefore,  in  wholesale  commerce,  and  no  other 
—  which  last  circumstance  it  is  important  to  mention 
eeeause  it  brings  him  within  the  benefit  of  Cicero’s 


OP  an  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


16! 


tondescending  distinction  ^  —  as  one  to  be  despised, 
certainly,  but  not  too  intensely  to  be  despised  even  by 
a  Roman  senator.  He  —  this  imperfectly  despicable 
man  —  died  at  an  early  age,  and  very  soon  after  the 
incidents  here  recorded,  leaving  to  his  family,  then 
consisting  of  a  wife  and  six  children,  an  unburthened 
estate  producing  exactly  £1600  a  year.  Naturally, 
therefore,  at  the  date  of  my  narrative,  —  if  narrative  it 
can  be  called,  —  he  had  an  income  still  larger,  from  the 
addition  of  current  commercial  profits.  Now,  to  any 
man  who  is  acquainted  with  commercial  life,  but,  aboye 
all,  with  such  life  in  England,  it  will  readily  occur  that 
in  an  opulent  English  family  of  that  class,  —  opulent, 
though  not  rich  in  a  mercantile  estimate, —  the  domes- 
tic  economy  is  likely  to  be  upon  a  scale  of  liberality 
altogether  unknown  amongst  the  corresponding  orders 
in  foreign  nations.  Whether  as  to  the  establishment  of 
servants,  or  as  to  the  provision  made  for  the  comfort  of 
all  its  members,  such  a  household  not  uncommonly 
eclipses  the  scale  of  living  even  amongst  the  poorer 
classes  of  our  nobility,  though  the  most  splendid  in 
Europe  —  a  fact  which,  since  the  period  of  my  infancy, 
I  have  had  many  personal  opportunities  for  verifying 
both  in  England  and  in  Ireland.  From  this  peculiar 
anomaly,  affecting  the  domestic  economy  of  merchants 
there  arises  a  disturbance  upon  the  general  scale  of 
outward  signs  by  which  we  measure  the  relations  of 
rank.  The  equation,  so  to  speak,  between  one  order 


♦Cicero,  in  a  well-known  passage  of  his  Ethics ,  speaks  of  trade 
*s  irredeemably  base,  if  petty  ;  but  as  not  so  absolutely  felonious 
if  wholesale.  He  gives  a  real  merchant  tone  who  is  such  in  the 
English  sense)  leave  to  think  himself  a  shade  above  small  beef. 

11 


162 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


iff  society  and  another,  which  usually  travels  in  the  nat« 
ural  line  of  their  comparative  expenditure,  is  here  inter¬ 
rupted  and  defeated,  so  that  one  rank  would  be  collected 
from  the  name  of  the  occupation,  and  another  rank, 
much  higher,  from  the  splendor  of  the  domestic  manage. 
I  warn  the  reader,  therefore  (or,  rather,  my  explanation 
has  already  warned  him),  that  he  is  not  to  infer,  from 
any  casual  gleam  of  luxury  or  elegance,  a  corresponding 
elevation  of  rank. 

We,  the  children  of  the  house,  stood  in  fact  upon  the 
very  happiest  tier  in  the  scaffolding  of  society  for  ail 
good  influences.  The  prayer  of  Agar  —  “Give  ms 
neither  poverty  nor  riches  ”  —  was  realized  for  us. 
That  blessing  had  we,  being  neither  too  high  nor  too 
low :  high  enough  we  were  to  see  models  of  good 
manners ;  obscure  enough  to  be  left  in  the  sweetest  of 
solitudes.  Amply  furnished  with  the  nobler  benefits  of 
wealth,  extra  means  of  health,  of  intellectual  culture, 
and  of  elegant  enjoyment,  on  the  other  hand,  we  knew 
nothing  of  its  social  distinctions.  Not  depressed  by  the 
consciousness  of  privations  too  sordid,  not  tempted  into 
restlessness  by  the  consciousness  of  privileges  too  aspir¬ 
ing,  we  had  no  motives  for  shame,  we  had  none  foi 
pride.  Grateful  also  to  this  hour  I  am,  that,  amidst 
luxuries  in  all  things  else,  we  were  trained  to  a  Spartan 
simplicity  of  diet,  —  that  we  fared,  in  fact,  very  much 
less  sumptuously  than  the  servants.  And  if  (after  the 
model  of  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius)  I  should 
►eturn  thanks  to  Providence  for  all  the  separate  bless 
mgs  of  my  early  situation,  these  four  I  would  single 
ut  as  chiefly  worthy  to  be  commemorated —that  1 
i'ed  in  the  country;  that  I  lived  in  sditude,  that  mj 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


Wi 

infant  feelings  were  moulded  by  the  gentlest  ef  sisters, 
aot  by  horrid  pugilistic  brothers ;  finally,  that  I  and  they 
were  dutiful  children,  of  a  pure,  holy,  and  magnificent 
rhurch. 


The  earliest  incidents  ir  my  life  which  affected  me 
so  deeply  as  to  be  rememberable  at  this  day  were  two, 
and  both  before  1  could  have  completed  my  second  year ; 
namely,  a  remarkable  dream  of  terrific  grandeur  about  a 
favorite  nurse,  which  is  interesting  for  a  reason  to  be 
noticed  hereafter ;  and,  secondly,  the  fact  of  having  con* 
nected  a  profound  sense  of  pathos  with  the  reappearance, 
very  early  in  the  spring,  of  some  crocuses.  This  I 
mention  as  inexplicable,  for  such  annual  resurrections  of 
plants  and  flowers  affect  us  only  as  memorials,  or  sug¬ 
gestions  of  a  higher  change,  and  therefore  in  connection 
with  the  idea  of  death ;  but  of  death  I  could,  at  that 
time,  have  had  no  experience  whatever. 

This,  however,  I  was  speedily  to  acquire.  My  two 
eldest  sisters  —  eldest  of  three  then  living,  and  also  elder 
than  myself — were  summoned  to  an  early  death.  The 
first  who  died  was  Jane,  about  a  year  older  than  my¬ 
self.  She  was  three  and  a  half,  I  two  and  a  half,  plus 
or  minus  some  trifle  that  I  do  not  recollect.  But  death 
was  then  scarcely  intelligible  to  me,  and  I  could  not 
eo  properly  be  said  to  suffer  sorrow  as  a  sad  perplex¬ 
ity.  T  here  was  anothei  death  in  the  house  about 
iie  same  time,  namely,  of  a  maternal  grandmother;  but 
as  she  had  in  a  manner  come  tc  us  for  the  express 
purpose  of  dying  in  her  daughter’s  society,  and  from 
'li ness  had  lived  perfectly  secluded  our  nursery  party 


164 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


knew  her  but  little,  and  were  certainly  more  affected  b| 
the  death  (which  I  witnessed)  of  a  favorite  bird,  namely, 
a  kingfisher  who  had  been  injured  by  an  accident 
With  my  sister  Jane’s  death  (though  otherwise,  aa 
I  have  said,  less  sorrowful  than  unintelligible)  there 
was,  however,  connected  an  incident  which  made  & 
most  feaiful  impression  upon  myself,  deepening  my 
tendencies  to  thoughtfulness  and  abstraction  beyond 
what  would  seem  credible  for  my  years.  If  there  was 
one  thing  in  this  world  from  which,  more  than  from 
any  other,  nature  had  forced  me  to  revolt,  it  was  brutal¬ 
ity  and  violence.  Now,  a  whisper  arose  in  the  family 
that  a  woman-servant,  who  by  accident  was  drawn  off 
from  her  proper  duties  to  attend  my  sister  Jane  for  a 
day  or  two,  had  on  one  occasion  treated  her  harshly, 
if  not  brutally;  and  as  this  ill  treatment  happened 
within  two  days  of  her  death,  so  that  the  occasion  of  it 
must  have  been  some  fretfulness  in  the  poor  child 
caused  by  her  sufferings,  naturally  there  was  a  sense 
of  awe  diffused  through  the  family.  I  believe  the 
story  never  reached  my  mother,  and  possibly  it  was 
exaggerated;  but  upon  me  the  effect  was  terrific.  I 
did  not  often  see  the  person  charged  with  this  cruelty  * 
but-  when  I  did,  my  eyes  sought  the  ground ;  noi 
could  I  have  borne  to  look  her  in  the  face  —  not 
through  anger;  and  as  to  vindictive  thoughts,  how 
could  these  lodge  in  a  powerless  infant  ?  The  feeling 
which  fell  upon  me  was  a  shuddering  awe,  as  upon  a 
first  glimpse  of  the  truth  that  I  was  in  a  world  of  evil 
and  strife.  Though  born  in  a  large  town,  I  had  passed 
the  whole  of  my  childhood,  except  for  the  few  earlie3' 
weeks,  in  a  i  iral  seclusion.  With  three  innocent  littl« 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


16b 


sisters  for  playmates,  sleeping  always  amongst  them, 
and  shut  up  forever  in  a  silent  garden  from  all  knowl¬ 
edge  of  poverty,  or  oppression,  or  outrage,  I  had  not 
suspected  until  this  moment  the  true  complexion  of  the 
world  in  which  myself  and  my  sisters  were  living. 
Henceforward  the  character  of  my  thoughts  must  have 
changed  greatly ;  for  so  representative  are  some  acts, 
that  one  single  case  of  the  class  is  sufficient  to  throw 
open  before  you  the  whole  theatre  of  possibilities  in 
that  direction.  I  never  heard  that  the  woman,  accused 
of  this  cruelty,  took  it  at  all  to  heart,  even  after  the 
event  which  so  immediately  succeeded  had  reflected 
upon  it  a  more  painful  emphasis.  On  the  other  hand,  I 
knew  of  a  case,  and  will  pause  to  mention  it,  where  a 
mere  semblance  and  shadow  of  such  cruelty,  under  sim 
liar  circumstances,  inflicted  the  grief  of  self-reproach 
through  the  remainder  of  life.  A  boy,  interesting  in 
his  appearance,  as  also  from  his  remarkable  docility,  was 
attacked,  on  a  cold  day  of  spring,  by  a  complaint  of  the 
trachea  —  not  precisely  croup,  but  like  it.  He  was 
three  years  old,  and  had  been  ill  perhaps  for  four 
days ;  but  at  intervals  had  been  in  high  spirits,  and 
capable  of  playing.  This  sunshine,  gleaming  through 
dark  clouds,  had  continued  even  on  the  fourth  day; 
and  from  nine  to  eleven  o’clock  at  night  he  had  showed 
more  animated  pleasure  than  ever.  An  old  servant, 
hearing  of  his  illness,  had  called  to  see  him  ;  and  her 
mode  of  talking  with  him  nad  excited  all  the  joyous 
ness  of  his  nature.  Aoout  midnight,  his  mother,  fancy- 
Tig  that  his  feet  felt  cold,  wa3  muffling  them  up  in 
Sannels ;  and,  as  he  seemed  to  resist  her  a  little,  sh<j 
ftruck  lightly  on  the  sole  of  one  foot  as  a  mode  of 


166 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


admonishing  him  to  be  quiet.  He  did  not  repent  bis 
motion  ;  and  in  less  than  a  minute  his  mother  had  him 
in  her  arms  with  his  face  looking  upwards.  “What  is 
the  meaning,”  she  exclaimed,  in  sudden  affright,  “of 
this  strange  repose  settling  upon  his  features?”  Sh® 
called  loudly  to  a  servant  in  another  room  ;  but  be  fox® 
the  servant  could  reach  her,  the  child  had  drawn  two 
inspirations,  deep,  yet  gentle  —  and  had  died  in  hia 
mother’s  arms !  Upon  this,  the  poor  afflicted  lady  made 
the  discovery  that  those  struggles,  which  she  had  sup» 
posed  to  be  expressions  of  resistance  to  herself,  were  the 
struggles  of  departing  life.  It  followed,  or  seemed  to 
follow,  that  with  these  final  struggles  had  blended  an 
expression,  on  her  part,  of  displeasure.  Doubtless  the 
child  had  not  distinctly  perceived  it ;  but  the  mothei 
could  never  look  back  to  that  incident  without  self- 
reproach.  And  seven  years  after,  when  her  own  death 
happened,  no  progress  had  been  made  in  reconciling  hei 
thoughts  to  that  which  only  the  depth  of  love  could  have 
viewed  as  an  offence. 

So  passed  away  from  earth  one  out  of  those  sisters 
that  made  up  my  nursery  playmates ;  and  so  did  my 
acquaintance  (if  such  it  could  be  called)  commence  with 
mortality.  Yet,  in  fact,  I  knew  little  more  of  mortality 
than  that  Jane  had  disappeared.  She  had  gone  away; 
but,  perhaps,  she  would  come  back.  Happy  interval  of 
heaven-born  ignorance!  Gracious  immunity  of  infancy 
from  sorrow  disproportioned  to  its  strength !  I  was 
Bad  for  Jane’s  absence.  But  still  in  my  heart  1 
trusted  that  she  would  come  again.  Summer  ano 
winter  came  again  —  crocuses  and  roses  ;  why  not  littla 
>ane  ¥ 


OF  AN  Er&LISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


187 

Thus  easily  was  healed,  then,  the  first  wound  in  my 
infant  heart.  Not  so  the  second.  For  thou,  dear,  noble 
Elizabeth,  around  whose  ample  brovv,  as  often  as  thy 
sweet  countenance  rise3  upon  the  darkness,  I  fancy  a 
tiara  of  light  or  a  gleaming  aureola  in  token  of  thy 
premature  intellectual  grandeur,  —  thou  whose  head,  for 
its  superb  developments,  was  the  astonishment  of  sci« 
ence,  *■  thou  next,  but  after  an  interval  of  happy 
years,  thou  also  wert  summoned  away  from  our  nurs» 
ery ;  and  the  night  which,  for  me,  gathered  upon  that 
event,  ran  after  my  steps  far  into  life  ;  and  perhaps  a*, 
this  day  I  resemble  little  for  good  or  for  ill  that  which 
else  I  should  have  been.  Pillar  of  fire  that  didst  go 
before  me  to  guide  and  to  quicken,  —  pillar  of  dark¬ 
ness,  when  thy  countenance  was  turned  away  to  God, 

*“  The  astonishment  of  science .” —  Her  medical  attendants  were 
Dr.  Percival,  a  well-known  literary  physician,  who  had  been  a  cor¬ 
respondent  of  Condorcet,  D’Alembert,  &c.,  and  Mr.  Charles  White, 
a  very  distinguished  surgeon.  It  was  he  who  pronounced  her  head 
to  be  the  finest  in  its  structure  and  development  of  any  that  he  had 
ever  seen,  —  an  assertion  which,  to  my  own  knowledge,  he  repeated 
in  after  years,  and  with  enthusiasm.  That  he  had  some  acquaint¬ 
ance  with  the  subject  may  be  presumed  from  this,  that  he  wrote  and 
published  a  work  on  the  human  skull,  supported  by  many  measure¬ 
ments  which  he  had  made  of  heads  selected  from  all  varieties  of 
•he  human  species.  Meantime,  as  I  would  be  loath  that  any  trait 
of  what  might  seem  vanity  should  creep  into  this  record,  I  will 
can  lidly  admit  that  she  died  of  hyi.ocephalus  ;  and  it  has  been 
ofte  1  supposed  that  the  premature  expansion  of  the  intellect  in 
gasss  of  that  class  is  altogether  morbid,  —  forced  on,  in  fact,  by  the 
mere  stimulation  of  the  disease.  I  would,  however,  suggest,  as  a 
possib:'lity,  the  very  inverse  order  of  relation  between  the  disease 
and  the  intellectual  manifestations.  Not  the  disease  may  always 
(tave  caused  the  preternatural  grow  h  of  the  intellect ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  this  growth  coming  on  spontaneously  and  outrunning  th« 
rapacities  of  th^  physical  stric'.cre,  may  have  caused  the 


68 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


that  didst  too  truly  shed  the  shadow  of  death  over  my 
young  heart,  —  in  what  scales  should  I  weigh  thee  i  Was 
the  blessing  greater  from  thy  heavenly  presence,  or  the 
blight  which  followed  thy  departure  ?  Can  a  man  weigh 
off  and  value  the  glories  of  dawn  against  the  darkness 
of  hurricane  ?  Or,  if  he  could,  how  is  it  that,  when  ff 
memorable  love  has  been  followed  by  a  memorable  be¬ 
reavement,  even  suppose  that  God  would  replace  the  s af- 
ferer  in  a  point  of  time  anterior  to  the  entire  experience 
and  offer  to  cancel  the  woe,  but  so  that  the  sweet  face 
which  had  caused  the  woe  should  also  be  obliterated, 
vehemently  would  every  man  shrink  from  the  exchange  \ 
In  the  Paradise  Lost,  this  strong  instinct  of  man,  to  pre¬ 
fer  the  heavenly,  mixed  and  polluted  with  the  earthly,  to 
a  level  experience  offering  neither  one  nor  the  other,  is 
divinely  commemorated.  What  words  of  pathos  are  in 
that  speech  of  Adam’s —  “  If  God  should  make  another 
Eve,”  &c. ;  that  is,  if  God  should  replace  him  in  his 
primitive  state,  and  should  condescend  to  bring  again  a 
second  Eve,  one  that  would  listen  to  no  temptation,  still 
that  original  partner  of  his  earliest  solitude  — 

“Creature  in  whom  excelled 
Whatever  can  to  sight  or  thought  be  formed, 

Holy,  divine,  good,  amiable,  or  sweet”  — 

even  now,  when  she  appeared  in  league  with  an  eternity 
si  woe,  and  ministering  to  his  ruin,  could  not  be  di» 
placed  for  him  by  any  better  or  happier  Eve.  “  Los* 
»f  thee  ! *'  he  exclaims,  in  this  anguish  of  trial  — 

“  Loss  of  thee 

Would  never  from  my  heart ;  no,  no,  I  feel 
The  link  of  nature  draw  me  ;  flesh  of  Reuh, 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


.6® 


Bone  of  my  bone  t  iou  art ,  and  from  thy  state 
Mine  never  shall  be  parted,  bliss  or  woe.”  * 

But  what  was  it  that  drew  my  heart,  by  gravitation 
R)  strong,  to  my  sister  ?  Could  a  child,  little  above  six 
)Tears  of  age,  place  any  special  value  upcr  her  intellect* 
nal  forwardness  ?  Serene  and  capacious  as  ner  mini 
appeared  to  me  upon  after  review,  was  that  a  charm  lor 
stealing  away  the  heart  of  an  infant  ?  0,  no  !  I  think  of 
it  now  with  interest,  because  it  lends,  in  a  stranger’s  ear 
some  justification  to  the  excess  of  my  fondness.  But 
then  it  was  lost  upon  me ;  or,  if  not  lost,  was  but  dimly 
perceived.  Hadst  thou  been  an  idiot,  my  sister,  not 
the  less  I  must  have  loved  thee,  having  that  capacious 
heart  overflowing,  even  as  mine  overflowed,  with  ten¬ 
derness,  and  stung,  even  as  mine  was  stung,  by  the 
necessity  of  being  loved.  This  it  was  which  crowned 
thee  with  beauty  — 

“  Love,  the  holy  sense, 

Best  gift  of  God,  in  thee  was  most  intense.” 


*  Amongst  the  oversights  in  the  Paradise  Lost ,  some  of  which 
have  not  yet  been  perceived,  it  is  certainly  one —  that,  by  placing 
in  such  overpowering  light  of  pathos  he  sublime  sacrifice  of  Adam 
,o  his  love  for  his  frail  companion,  he  has  too  much  lowered  the 
gr.it  of  his  disobedience  to  God.  All  that  Milton  can  say  after 
wards  does  not,  and  cannot,  obscure  the  beauty  of  that  action  ; 
reviewing  it  calmly,  we  condemn,  bu.  taking  the  impassioned  sta- 
;‘cn  of  Adam  at  the  moment  of  temptation,  we  approve  in  our 
hearts.  This  was  certainly  an  oversight ;  but  it  was  one  very  dif- 
Jcult  to  redress.  I  remember,  amongst  the  many  exquisite  thoughts 
»f  John  Paul  (Richter),  one  which  strikes  me  as  particularly  touch¬ 
ing,  upon  this  subject.  He  suggests,  not  as  any  grave  theological 
fomment,  but  as  the  wandering  fancy  of  a  poetic  heart,  that,  had 
idam  conquered  the  anguish  x”  separation  as  a  pure  sacrifice  of 
tfcedience  to  God,  his  ~eward  would  have  beea  the  pardon  ana 
raeonciliatinn  of  Eve.  together  with  her  restoration  t.o  innocence. 


no 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


That  lamp  lighted  in  Paradise  was  kindled  for  m3 
which  shone  so  steadily  in  thee ;  and  never  but  to  thee 
only,  never  again  since  thy  departure,  durst  I  utter  the 
feelings  which  possessed  me.  For  I  was  the  shyest  of 
children;  and  a  natural  sense  of  personal  dignity  held 
the  oack  at  all  stages  of  life,  from  exposing  the  least 
ray  of  feelings  which  I  was  not  encouraged  wholly  to 
reveal. 

It  wou^H  be  painful,  and  it  is  needless,  to  pursue  the 
course  of  that  sickness  which  carried  off  my  leader 
and  companion.  She  (according  to  my  recollection  at 
this  moment)  was  just  as  much  above  eight  years  as  I 
above  six.  And  perhaps  this  natural  precedency  of 
authority  in  judgment,  and  the  tender  humility  with 
which  she  declined  to  assert  it,  had  been  amongst  the 
fascinations  of  her  presence.  It  was  upon  a  Sunday 
evening,  or  so  people  fancied,  that  the  spark  of  fatal 
fire  fell  upon  that  train  of  predispositions  to  a  brain 
complaint  which  had  hitherto  slumbered  within  her 
She  had  been  permitted  to  drink  tea  at  the  house  of 
a  laboring  man,  the  father  of  an  old  female  servant. 
The  sun  had  set  when  she  returned  in  the  company  of 
this  servant  through  meadows  reeking  with  exhalations 
after  a  fervent  day.  From  that  time  she  sickened. 
Happily,  a  child  in  such  circumstances  feels  no  anxie- 
ties.  Looking  upon  medical  men  as  people  whose 
natural  commission  it  is  to  heal  diseases,  since  it  ia 
‘■heir  natural  function  to  profess  it,  knowing  them  only 
is  ex  officio  privileged  to  make  war  upon  pain  and  sick¬ 
ness,  I  never  had  a  misgiving  about  the  result.  I 
grieved,  indeed,  that  my  sister  should  lie  in  bed, 
frieved  stilL  more  sometimes  to  hear  her  moan. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


171 


all  this  appeared  to  me  no  more  than  a  night  of  trouble 
&n  which  the  dawn  would  soon  arise.  O !  moment 
ef  darkness  and  delirium,  when  a  nurse  awakened  me 
from  that  delusion,  and  launched  God’s  thunderbolt 
si:  my  heart  in  the  assurance  that  my  sister  must  die 
Rightly  it  is  said  of  utter,  utter  misery,  that  it  “  cannot 
be  remembered Itself,  as  a  remarkable  thing,  is 
swallowed  up  in  its  own  chaos.  Mere  anarchy  and  con¬ 
fusion  of  mind  fell  upon  me.  Deaf  and  blind  I  was,  as 
I  reeled  under  the  revelation.  I  wish  not  to  recall  the 
circumstances  of  that  time,  when  my  agony  was  at  its 
height,  and  hers  in  another  sense  was  approaching. 
Enough  to  say,  that  all  was  soon  over ;  and  the  morning 
of  that  day  had  at  last  arrived  which  looked  down  upon 
her  innocent  face,  sleeping  the  sleep  from  which  there  is 
no  awaking,  and  upon  me  sorrowing  the  sorrow  for  which 
there  is  no  consolation. 

On  the  day  after  my  sister’s  death,  whilst  the  sweet 
temple  of  her  brain  was  yet  unviolated  by  human  scru¬ 
tiny,  I  formed  my  own  scheme  for  seeing  her  once 
more.  Not  for  the  world  would  I  have  made  this 
known,  nor  have  suffered  a  witness  to  accompany  me. 
\  had  never  heard  of  feelings  that  take  the  name  of 
*  Sentimental,”  nor  dreamed  of  such  a  possibility.  But 
grief  even  in  a  child  hates  the  light,  and  shrinks  from 
Human  eyes.  The  house  was  large ;  there  were  two 
etaircases ;  and  by  one  of  these  knew  that  about 
noon,  when  all  would  be  quiet,  I  could  steal  up  into  hef 
chamber.  i  imagine  that  it  was  exactly  high  nooa 


*  “  1  stood  in  unimaginable  irance 

And  agony,  which  cannot  be  remembered. :5 

Speech  ojf  Alhadra ,  in  Coleridge's  Remorse. 


172 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


when  1  reached  the  chamber  door;  it  was  locked  but 
the  key  was  not  taken  away.  Entering,  I  closed  the 
door  so  softly,  that,  although  it  opened  upon  a  hall  which 
ascended  through  all  the  stories,  no  echo  ran  along  the 
silent  walls.  Then  turning  round,  I  sought  my  sister’s 
face.  But  the  bed  had  been  moved,  and  the  back  was 
now  turned.  Nothing  met  my  eyes  but  one  large 
window  wide  open,  through  which  the  sun  of  midsum¬ 
mer  at  noonday  was  showering  down  torrents  of  splen¬ 
dor.  The  weather  was  dry,  the  sky  was  cloudless,  the 
blue  depths  seemed  the  express  types  of  infinity ;  and  it 
was  not  possible  for  eye  to  behold  or  for  heart  to  con¬ 
ceive  any  symbols  more  pathetic  of  life  and  the  glory  of 
life. 

Let  me  pause  for  one  instant  in  approaching  a  remem¬ 
brance  so  affecting  and  revolutionary  for  my  own  mind, 
and  one  which  (if  any  earthly  remembrance)  will  sur¬ 
vive  for  me  in  the  hour  of  death,  —  to  remind  some 
readers,  and  to  inform  others,  that  in  the  original 
Opium  Covfessions  I  endeavored  to  explain  the  reason* 
why  death,  cceteris  paribus,  is  more  profoundly  affect- 
mg  in  summer  than  in  other  parts  of  the  year;  so 
Lr,  at  least,  as  it  is  liable  to  any  modification  at  a)J 
irom  accidents  of  scenery  or  season.  The  reason,  a* 
l  there  suggested,  lies  in  the  antagonism  between  the 
opical  redundancy  of  life  in  summer  and  the  dark 
t'erilities  of  the  grave.  The  summer  we  see,  the 
we  haunt  with  our  thoughts ;  the  glory  is  around 
si*,  the  darkneso  is  within  us.  And  the  twro  coming 
*kto  collision,  each  exalts  the  other  into  stronger  relie* 


•Some  readers  will  question  the  fact ,  and  seek  no  reason  Bf 
i\d  they  ever  suffer  grief  at  any  season  of  the  year? 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


17^ 


But  in  my  case  there  was  even  a  subtler  reason  why 
the  summer  had  this  intense  power  of  vivifying  the 
rpectacle  or  the  thoughts  of  death.  And,  recollecting 
it,  often  I  have  been  struck  with  the  important  truth, 
that  far  more  of  our  deepest  thoughts  and  feelings  pass 
to  us  through  perplexed  combinations  of  concrete  ob¬ 
jects,  pass  to  us  as  involutes  (if  I  may  coin  that  woid) 
in  compound  experiences  incapable  of  being  disen 
tangled,  than  ever  reach  us  directly ,  and  in  their  own 
ibstract  shapes.  It  had  happened  that  amongst  our 
lursery  collection  of  books  was  the  Bible  illustrated 
vith  many  pictures.  And  in  long  dark  evenings,  as 
my  three  sisters  with  myself  sate  by  the  firelight  round 
the  guard  of  our  nursery,  no  book  was  so  much  in 
.request  amongst  us.  It  ruled  us  and  swayed  us  as 
mysteriously  as  music.  One  young  nurse,  whom  we 
all  loved,  before  any  candle  was  lighted,  would  often 
strain  her  eye  to  read  it  for  us ;  and,  sometimes, 
according  to  her  simple  powers,  would  endeavor  to 
explain  what  we  found  obscure.  We,  the  children, 
were  all  constitutionally  touched  with  pensiveness ; 
the  fitful  gloom  and  sudden  lambencies  of  the  room  by 
firelight  suited  our  evening  state  of  feelings;  and 
they  suited,  also,  the  livine*  revelations  of  power  and 
mysterious  beauty  which  awed  us.  Above  all,  the 
*tory  of  a  just  man  —  man  and  yet  not  man,  real 
above  all  things,  and  yet  shadowy  above  all  things 
?vho  had  suffered  the  passion  of  death  in  Palestine  — 
slept  upon  our  minds  like  early  dawn  upon  the  waters. 
The  nurse  knew  and  explained  to  us  the  chief  differ¬ 
ences  in  oriental  climates ;  and  all  the«e  differences 
w  it  happens)  express  themselves  in  the  great  van- 


174 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


eties  of  summer.  The  cloudless  sunlights  of  Syria 
—  those  seemed  to  argue  everlasting  summer;  the 
disciples  plucking  the  ears  of  com  —  that  must  be 
summer;  but,  above  all,  the  very  name  of  Palm  Sun¬ 
day  (a  festival  in  the  English  church)  troubled  me 
like  an  anthem.  ‘‘Sunday!”  what  was  that?  Thai 
was  the  day  of  peace  which  masked  another  peace 
deeper  than  the  heart  of  man  can  comprehend. 
“  Palms  !  ”  wrhat  were  they  ?  That  was  an  equivo¬ 
cal  word  ;  palms,  in  the  sense  of  trophies,  expressed 
the  pomps  of  life ;  palms,  as  a  product  of  nature, 
expressed  the  pomps  of  summer.  Yet  still  even  this 
explanation  does  not  suffice ;  it  was  not  merely  by  the 
peace  and  by  the  summer,  by  the  deep  sound  of  rest 
below  all  rest,  and  of  ascending  glory,  that  I  had  been 
haunted.  It  was  also  because  Jerusalem  stood  near  to 
those  deep  images  both  in  time  and  in  place.  The 
great  event  of  Jerusalem  was  at  hand  when  Palm 
Sunday  came ;  and  the  scene  of  that  Sunday  was  near 
in  place  to  Jerusalem.  Yet  what  then  was  Jerusalem  ? 
.Did  I  fancy  it  to  be  the  omphalos  (navel)  of  the  earth  ? 
That  pretension  had  once  been  made  for  Jerusalem, 
and  once  for  Delphi;  and  both  pretensions  had  become 
ridiculous,  as  the  figure  of  the  planet  became  known. 
Yes;  but  if  not  of  the  earth,  for  earth’s  tenant,  Jeru¬ 
salem  was  the  omphalos  of  mortality.  Yet  how?  there, 
fi  the  contrary,  it  was,  as  we  infants  understood,  that 
liortality  had  been  trampled  under  foot.  True;  but 
<or  that  very  reason,  there  it  was  that  mortality  had 
opened  iVi.  very  gloomiest  crater.  There  it  was,  inde**4 
that  the  human  had  risen  on  wings  from  the  grave 
aut,  foi  ffiat  reason,  there  also  ii  was  that  the  divine  half 


01  .IN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  175 

feeen  swallowed  up  by  the  abyss;  the  lesser  star  could 
aot  rise,  before  the  greater  would  submit  to  eelipnr... 
Sumner,  therefore,  had  connected  itself  with  death, 
not  merely  as  a  mode  of  antagonism,  but  also  through 
ntricate  relations  to  scriptural  scenery  and  events. 

Out  of  this  digression,  which  was  almost  necessary 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  how  inextricably  my  feel¬ 
ings  and  images  of  death  were  entangled  with  those 
of  summer,  I  return  to  the  bed-chamber  of  my  sister. 
From  the  gorgeous  sunlight  I  turned  round  to  the 
corpse.  There  lay  the  sweet  childish  figure;  there  the 
angel  face ;  and,  as  people  usually  fancy,  it  was  said 
’in  the  house  that  no  features  had  suffered  any  change. 
Had  they  not?  The  forehead,  indeed,  —  the  serene  and 
noble  forehead, —  that  might  be  the  same;  but  the  frozen 
eyelids,  the  darkness  that  seemed  to  steal  from  beneath 
them,  the  marble  lips,  the  stiffening  hands,  laid  palm  tc 
palm,  as  if  repeating  the  supplications  of  closing  anguish, 

—  could  these  be  mistaken  for  life?  Had  it  been  so, 
wherefore  did  I  not  spring  to  those  heavenly  lips  with 
tears  and  never-ending  kisses  ?  But  so  it  was  vot.  I 
stood  checked  for  a  moment;  awe,  not  fear,  fell  upon 
me  ;  and,  whilst  I  stood,  a  solemn  wind  began  to  blow, 

—  the  most  mournful  that  ear  ever  heard.  Mournful! 
that  is  saying  nothing.  It  was  a  wind  that  had  swept 
the  fields  of  mortality  for  a  hundred  centuries.  Many 
times  since,  upon  a  summer  day,  when  the  sun  is  about 
the  hottest,  I  have  remarked  the  same  wind  arising  and 
Uttering  the  same  hollow,  solemn,  Memnonian,  but 
tamtly  swell .  it  is  in  this  world  the  one  sole  zudihh 
ryrrbol  of  eternity.  And  three  times  ir  my  life  \  have 
vappened  to  hear  the  same  sound  in  the  same  circura' 


176 


A  SEQUEL  TO  Till  30NFESST0NS 


stances  tamely,  when  standing  between  an  open  win¬ 
dow  and  a  dead  body  on  a  summer  day. 

Instant,  y,  when  my  ear  caught  this  vast  JEolian  into* * 
nation,  when  my  eye  filled  with  the  golden  fulness  of 
life,  the  pomps  and  glory  of  the  heavens  outside,  an*i 
turning  when  it  settled  upon  the  frost  which  overspread 
my  sister’s  face,  instantly  a  trance  fell  upon  me.  A 
vault  seemed  to  open  in  the  zenith  of  the  far  blue  shy 
a  shaft  which  ran  up  forever.  I,  in  spirit,  rose  as  if  on 
billows  that  also  ran  up  the  shaft  forever;  and  the 
billows  seemed  to  pursue  the  throne  of  God ;  but  that 
also  ran  before  us  and  fled  away  continually.  The 
flight  and  the  pursuit  seemed  to  go  on  for  ever  and 
ever.  Frost,  gathering  frost,  some  Sarsar  wind  of 
death,  seemed  to  repel  me;  I  slept  —  for  how  long 
I  cannot  say :  slowly  I  recovered  my  self-possession, 
and  found  myself  standing,  as  before,  close  to  my 
sister’s  bed. 

O*  flight  of  the  solitary  child  to  the  solitary  God 
—  flight  from  the  ruined  corpse  to  the  throne  that  could 
not  be  ruined  !  —  how  rich  v/ert  thou  in  truth  for  after 
years !  Rapture  of  grief  that,  being  too  mighty  for  a 
"diild  to  sustain,  foundest  a  happy  oblivion  in  a  heaven- 
torn  dream,  and  within  that  sleep  didst  concea  a 
dream,  whose  meaning,  in  after  years,  when  slowly  1 
deciphered,  suddenly  there  flashed  upon  me  new  light , 
and  even  by  the  grief  of  a  child,  as  I  will  show  you, 
leader,  hereafter,  were  confounded  the  falsehoods  of 
philosophers.! 

9  *t>vyr\  uovov  hqoc  f. tovor .  —  Plotinus. 

*  The  thoughts  referred  to  will  be  given  in  final  notes ;  as  at  this 
thsy  seemed  too  much  to  interrupt  t\e  course  of  the  narrative 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER 


171 


in  the  Opium  Confessions  I  touched  a  little  upon  the 
extraordinary  power  connected  with  opium  (after  long 
ase)  of  amplifying  the  dimensions  of  time.  Space,  also, 
it  amplifies  by  degrees  that  are  sometimes  terrific.  But 
time  it  is  upon  which  the  exalting  awl  multiplying  power 
of  opium  chiefly  spends  its  operation.  Time  becomes 
infinitely  elastic,  stretching  out  to  such  immeasurable 
and  vanishing  termini,  that  it  seems  ridiculous  to  com 
pute  the  sense  of  it,  on  waking,  by  expressions  com 
mensurate  to  human  life.  As  in  starry  fields  one 
computes  by  diameters  of  the  earth’s  orbit,  or  of 
Jupiter’s,  so,  in  valuing  the  virtual  time  lived  during 
some  dreams,  the  measurement  by  generations  is  ridic¬ 
ulous —  by  millenia  is  ridiculous;  by  aeons,  I  should 
say,  if  aeons  were  more  determinate,  would  be  also 
ridiculous.  On  this  single  occasion,  however,  in  my 
life,  the  very  inverse  phenomenon  occurred.  But  why 
speak  of  it  in  connection  with  opium  ?  Could  a  child 
of  six  years  old  have  been  under  that  influence  ?  No, 
but  simply  because  it  so  exactly  reversed  the  operation 
of  opium.  Instead  of  a  short  interval  expanding  into  a 
vast  one,  upon  this  occasion  a  long  one  had  contracted 
into  a  minute.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  a  very 
ong  one  had  elapsed  during  this  wandering  or  suspen¬ 
sion  of  my  perfect  mind.  When  I  returned  to  myself, 
there  was  a  foot  (or  I  fancied  so)  cn  the  stairs.  *  wa* 
Uarmed  ;  for  I  believed  that,  if  anybody  should  detect 
me,  means  would  be  taken  to  prevent  my  coming 
tgain.  Hastily,  therefore  I  kissed  the  lips  that  I  should 
Kiss  no  more,  and  slunk  like  a  guilty  thing  with  stealthy 
$eps  from  the  room.  Thus  perished  the  vision,  love- 
lest  amongst  all  the  shews  which  earth  has  revealed 


78 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


to  me;  thus  mutilated  was  the  parting  which  should 
nave  lasted  forever;  thus  tainted  with  fear  wa3  ths 
farewell  sacred  to  love  and  grief,  to  perfect  love  ana 
perfect  grief. 

O,  Ahasuerus,  everlasting  Jew !  *  fable  or  not  a 
fable,  thou  when  first  starting  on  thy  endless  pilgrimage 
of  wee,  —  thou  when  first  flying  through  the  gates  of 
Jerusalem,  and  vainly  yearning  to  leave  the  pursuing 
curse  behind  thee, —  couldst  not  more  certainly  have  read 
thy  doom  of  sorrow  in  the  misgivings  of  thy  troubled 
brain  than  1  when  passing  forever  from  my  sister’s 
room.  The  worm  was  at  my  heart ;  and,  confining 
myself  to  that  state  of  life,  I  may  say,  the  worm 
that  could  not  die.  For  if,  when  standing  upon  the 
threshold  of  manhood,  I  had  ceased  to  feel  its  perpetual 
gnawings,  that  was  because  a  vast  expansion  of  intel¬ 
lect,  it  wras  because  new  hopes,  new  necessities,  and 
the  frenzy  of  youthful  blood,  had  translated  me  into  a 
new’-  creature.  Man  is  doubtless  one  by  some  subtle 
nexus  that  we  cannot  perceive,  extending  from  the  new¬ 
born  infant  to  the  superannuated  dotard  :  but  as  regards 
many  affections  and  passions  incident  to  his  nature  at 
different  stages,  he  is  not  one  ;  the  unity  of  man  in  this 
respect  is  coextensive  only  with  the  particular  stage  to 
which  the  passion  belongs.  Some  passions,  as  that  of 
sexual  love,  are  celestial  by  one  half  of  their  origin 
mimal  and  earthly  by  the  other  half.  These  will  not 
survive  their  own  appropriate  stage.  But  love,  wdiich 
cs  altogether  holy,  like  that  between  two  children,  wil 

*  ‘  Everlasting  Jew!  ”  —  der  ewige  Jude — which  is  thecommo 
German  expression  for  The  Wandering  Jew ,  and  suhlimer  even  thi 
our  own. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


179 


revisit  undoubtedly  by  glimpses  the  silence  and  the  dark¬ 
ness  of  old  age*  and  I  repeat  my  belief  —  that,  unless 
bodily  torment  should  forbid  it,  that  final  experience  in 
my  sister’s  bed-room,  or  some  other  in  which  her  inno¬ 
cence  was  concerned,  will  rise  again  for  me,  to  illuminate 
the  hour  of  death. 

On  the  day  following  this  which  1  have  recorded, 
came  a  body  of  medical  men  to  examine  the  brain,  and 
the  particular  nature  of  the  complaint,  for  in  some  of 
its  symptoms  it  had  shown  perplexing  anomalies.  Such 
is  the  sanctity  of  death,  and  especially  of  death  alight¬ 
ing  on  an  innocent  child,  that  even  gossiping  people 
do  not  gossip  on  such  a  subject.  Consequently,  I  knew 
nothing  of  the  purpose  which  drew  together  these  sur¬ 
geons,  nor  suspected  anything  of  the  cruel  changes 
which  might  have  been  wrought  in  my  sister’s  head. 
Long  after  this,  I  saw  a  similar  case  ;  I  surveyed  the 
corpse  (it  was  that  of  a  beautiful  boy,  eighteen  years  old, 
who  had  died  of  the  same  complaint)  one  hour  after  the 
surgeons  had  laid  the  skull  in  ruins ;  but  the  dishonors 
of  this  scrutiny  were  hidden  by  bandages,  and  had  not 
disturbed  the  repose  of  the  countenance.  So  it  might 
have  been  here ;  but,  if  it  were  not  so,  then  I  waa 
happy  in  being  spared  the  shock,  from  having  that  mar¬ 
ble  image  of  peace,  icy  and  rigid  as  it  was,  unsettled  Dy 
disfiguring  images.  Some  hours  after  the  strangers  had 
withdrawn,  I  crept  again  to  the  room  ;  but  the  door  waa 
now  locked,  the  key  was  taken  away  —  and  I  rvas  shut 
nut  forever. 

Then  came  the  funeral.  I,  as  a  point  of  decorum, 
tvas  carried  thither.  1  was  pat  into  a  carriage  with 
©me  gentlemen  whom  I  lid  not  know.  They  were 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


kind  to  me  ;  but  naturally  the)  talked  of  things  discon¬ 
nected  with  the  occasion,  and  their  ccnversation  was  a 
torment.  At  the  church,  I  was  told  to  hold  a  white 
handkerchief  to  my  eyes.  Empty  hypocrisy !  What 
need  had  he  of  masques  or  mockeries,  whose  heart  died 
within  him  at  every  word  that  was  uttered  ?  During 
that  part  of  the  service  which  passed  within  the  church, 
I  made  an  effort  to  attend  ;  but  I  sank  back  continually 
into  my  own  solitary  darkness,  and  I  heard  little  con¬ 
sciously,  except  some  fugitive  strains  from  the  sublime 
chapter  of  St.  Paul,  which  in  England  is  always  read 
at  burials.  And  here  I  notice  a  profound  error  of  our 
present  illustrious  laureate.  When  I  heard  those 
dreadful  words,  —  for  dreadful  they  were  to  me,  — 
“  It  is  sown  in  corruption,  it  is  raised  in  incorruption  ; 
it  is  sown  in  dishonor,  it  is  raised  in  glory;”  such 
was  the  recoil  of  my  feelings,  that  I  could  even  have 
shrieked  out  a  protesting  —  “  O,  no,  no  !  ”  if  I  had 
not  been  restrained  by  the  publicity  of  the  occasion 
In  after  years,  reflecting  upon  this  revolt  of  my  feel¬ 
ings,  which,  being  the  voice  of  nature  in  a  child,  must 
be  as  true  as  any  mere  opinion  of  a  child  might 
probably  be  false,  I  saw,  at  once,  the  unsoundness  of 
a  passage  in  The  Excursion.  The  book  is  not  here 
but  the  substance  I  remember  perfectly.  Mr.  Words¬ 
worth  argues,  that  if  it  were  not  for  the  unsteady 
faith  which  people  fix  upon  the  beatific  condition  altei 
death  of  those  whom  they  deplore,  nobody  could  be 
found  so  selfish  as  even  secretly  to  wish  for  the  res 
toration  to  earth  of  a  beloved  object.  A  mother,  foi 
instance,  could  never  dream  of  yearning  for  her  chile, 
ind  secretly  calling  it  back  by  her  silent  aspiration* 


or  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


191 


from,  the  arms  of  God,  if  she  were  but  reconciled  to 
the  belief  that  really  it  was  in  those  arms.  But  this  i 
utterly  deny.  To  take  my  own  case,  when  I  heard 
those  dreadful  wrords  of  St.  Paul  applied  to  my  sis* 
ter,  namely,  that  she  should  be  raised  a  spiritual  body, 
nobody  can  suppose  that  selfishness,  or  any  cthef 
feeling-  than  that  of  agonizing  love,  caused  the  rebel* 
lion  of  my  heart  against  them.  I  knew  already  th&i 
she  was  to  come  again  in  beauty  and  power.  I  did 
not  now  learn  this  for  the  first  time.  And  that  thought, 
doubtless,  made  my  sorrow  sublimer ;  but  also  it  made 
it  deeper.  For  here  lay  the  sting  of  it,  namely,  in  the 
fatal  words — “We  shall  be  changed .”  How  was  the 
unity  of  my  interest  in  her  to  be  preserved,  if  she 
were  to  be  altered,  and  no  longer  to  reflect  in  her 
sweet  countenance  the  traces  that  were  sculptured  on 
my  heart  ?  Let  a  magician  ask  any  woman  whether 
she  will  permit  him  to  improve  her  child,  to  raise  it 
even  from  deformity  to  perfect  beauty,  if  that  must  be 
done  at  the  cost  of  its  identity,  and  there  is  no  loving 
mother  but  would  reject  his  proposal  with  horror. 
Or,  to  take  a  case  that  has  actually  happened,  if  a 
mother  were  robbed  of  her  child,  at  two  years  old,  by 
gypsies,  and  the  same  child  were  restored  to  her  at 
twenty,  a  fine  young  man,  but  divided  by  a  sleep  as 
it  were  of  death  from  all  remembrances  that  could 
restore  the  broken  links  of  their  once  tender  connec¬ 
tion, —  would  she  not  feel  her  grief  unhealed,  and  heir 
heart  defrauded?  Undoubtedly  she  would.  Ad  of  us 
vsk  not  of  God  for  a  better  thing  than  that  we  have 
ost;  we  ask  for  the  same,  even  with  its  faults  and  its 
Srailties.  It  is  true  that  me  sorrowing  person  wiU 


!82 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


fllso  be  changed  eventually,  but  that  must  be  by  death. 
And  a  prospec  t  so  remote  as  that,  and  so  alien  from  out 
present  nature,  cannot  console  us  in  an  affliction  which 
is  not  remote,  but  present  —  which  is  not  spiritual,  but 
human. 

Lastly  came  the  magnificent  service  which  the  Eng¬ 
lish  Church  performs  at  the  side  of  the  grave.  There 
is  exposed  once  again,  and  for  the  last  time,  the  coffin. 
All  eyes  survey  the  record  of  name,  of  sex,  of  age, 
and  the  day  of  departure  from  earth,  —  records  how 
useless !  and  dropped  into  darkness  as  if  messages 
addressed  to  worms.  Almost  at  the  very  last  cornea 
the  symbolic  ritual,  tearing  and  shattering  the  heart 
with  volleying  discharges,  peal  after  peal,  from  tha 
final  artillery  of  woe.  The  coffin  is  lowered  into  its 
home  ;  it  has  disappeared  from  the  eye.  The  sacris¬ 
tan  stands  ready,  with  his  shovel  of  earth  and  stones. 
The  priest’s  voice  is  heard  once  more,  —  earth  to 
earthy  and  the  dread  rattle  ascends  from  the  lid  of  the 
coffin  ;  ashes  to  ashes ,  and  again  the  killing  sound  is 
fieard  ;  dust  to  dust ,  and  the  farewell  volley  announces 
that  the  grave  —  the  coffin  —  the  face  are  sealed  up 
for  ever  and  ever. 


O,  grief!  thou  art  classed  amongst  the  depressing 
passions.  And  true  it  is,  that  thou  humblest  to  the 
dust,  but  also  thou  exaltest  to  the  clouds.  Thou  shakes! 
es  with  ague,  but  also  thou  steadiest  like  frost.  Thou 
eickenest  the  heart,  but  also  thou  healest  its  infirmities 
Among  the  very  foremost  of  mine  was  morbid  sen  si 
vility  to  shame.  And,  ten  years  afterwards,  I  used  U 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


183 


reproach  myself  with  this  infirmity,  by  supposing  the 
lase,  that,  if  it  were  thrown  upon  me  to  seek  aid  for  a 
perishing  fellow-creature,  and  that  I  could  obtain  that 
aid  only  by  facing  a  vast  company  of  critical  or  sneering 
faces,  I  might,  perhaps,  shrink  basely  from  the  duty 
[t  is  true,  that  no  such  case  had  ever  actually  occurred, 
so  that  it  was  a  mere  romance  of  casuistry  to  tax  my* 
self  with  cowardice  so  shocking.  But,  to  feel  a  doubt, 
was  to  feel  condemnation;  and  the  crime  which  migkl 
have  been  was  in  my  eyes  the  crime  which  had  been. 
Now,  however,  all  was  changed ;  and  for  anything 
which  regarded  my  sister’s  memory,  in  one  hour  i 
received  a  new  heart.  Once  in  Westmoreland  I  saw  a 
rase  resembling  it.  I  saw  a  ewe  suddenly  put  off  and 
abjure  her  own  nature,  in  a  service  of  love,  —  yes, 
plough  it  as  completely  as  ever  serpent  sloughed  his 
skin.  Her  lamb  had  fallen  into  a  deep  trench,  from 
which  all  escape  was  hopeless,  without  the  aid  of  man. 
And  to  a  man  she  advanced  boldly,  bleating  clamor* 
ously,  until  he  followed  her  and  rescued  her  beloved. 
Not  less  was  the  change  in  myself.  Fifty  thousand 
pneering  faces  would  not  have  troubled  me  in  any  office 
of  tenderness  to  my  sister’s  memory.  Ten  legions 
would  not  have  repelled  me  from  seeking  her,  if  there 
vas  a  chance  that  she  could  be  found.  Mockery  !  it 
Was  lost  upon  me.  Laugh  at  me,  as  one  or  twro  people 
i  id  !  I  valued  not  their  laughter.  And  when  I  was 
told  insultingly  to  cease  “  my  girlish  tears.”  that  word 
" girlish”  had  no  sting  for  me,  except  as  a  verbal  echo 
io  the  one  eternal  thought  of  my  heart,  —  that  a  gill 
was  the  sweetest  thing  I,  in  my  short  life,  had  known 
—  that  a  girl  it  was  who  had  crowned  the  earth  with 


m 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


oeauty,  a  Ad  had  opened  to  my  thirst  fountains  of  purs 
celestial  love,  from  which,  in  this  world,  I  was  to  drink 
no  more. 

Interesting  it  is  to  observe  how  certainly  all  deep 
feelings  agree  in  this,  that  they  seek  for  solitude,  and 
are  nursed  by  solitude.  Deep  grief,  deep  love,  how 
naturally  do  these  ally  themselves  with  religious  feel* 
mg ;  and  all  three  —  love,  grief,  religion  —  are  haunters 
of  solitary  places.  Love,  grief,  the  passion  of  reverie, 
or  the  mystery  of  devotion,  —  what  were  these,  without 
solitude  ?  All  day  long,  when  it  was  not  impossible 
for  me  to  do  so,  I  sought  the  most  silent  and  seques¬ 
tered  nooks  in  the  grounds  about  the  house,  or  in  the 
neighboring  fields.  The  awful  stillness  occasionally  of 
summer  noons,  when  no  winds  were  abroad,  the  ap¬ 
pealing  silence  of  gray  or  misty  afternoons, —  these 
were  fascinations  as  of  witchcraft.  Into  the  woods  or 
the  desert  air  I  gazed,  as  if  some  comfort  lay  hid  in 
them.  I  wearied  the  heavens  with  my  inquest  of  be¬ 
seeching  looks.  I  tormented  the  blue  depths  with 
obstinate  scrutiny,  sweeping  them  with  my  eyes,  and 
searching  them  forever  after  one  angelic  face  that 
might,  perhaps,  have  permission  to  reveal  itself  for  a 
moment.  The  faculty  of  shaping  images  in  the  dis¬ 
tance  out  of  slight  elements,  and  grouping  them  after 
the  yearnings  of  the  heart,  aided  by  a  slight  defect  in 
my  eyes,  grew  upon  me  at  this  time.  And  I  recall  at 
the  present  moment  one  instance  of  that  sort,  which 
may  show  how  merely  shadows,  or  a  gleam  of  bright* 
aess,  or  nothing  at  all,  could  furnish  a  sufficient  basis 
for  this  creative  faculty.  On  Sunday  mornings  I  was 
ilways  taken  to  church  :  it  was  a  church  on  the  old 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  185 

and  natural  model  of  England,  having  aisles,  galleries, 
organs,  all  things  ancient  and  venerable,  and  the  pro* 
portions  majestic.  Here,  whilst  the  congregation  knelt 
through  the  long  litany,  as  often  as  we  came  to  that 
passage,  so  beautiful  amongst  many  that  are  so,  where 
God  is  supplicated  on  behalf  of  “  all  sick  persons  and 
young  children,”  and  that  he  would  “  show  his  pity 
upon  all  prisoners  and  captives,”  —  I  wept  in  secret, 
and  raising  my  streaming  eyes  to  the  windows  of  the 
galleries,  saw,  on  days  when  the  sun  was  shining,  a 
spectacle  as  affecting  as  ever  prophet  can  have  beheld. 
The  sides  of  the  windows  were  rich  with  storied  glass , 
through  the  deep  purples  and  crimsons  streamed  the 
golden  light;  emblazonries  of  heavenly  illumination 
mingling  with  the  earthly  emblazonries  of  what  is 
grandest  in  man.  There  were  the  apostles  that  had 
trampled  upon  earth,  and  the  glories  of  earth,  out  of 
celestial  love  to  man.  There  were  the  martyrs  that 
had  borne  witness  to  the  truth  through  flames,  through 
torments,  and  through  armies  of  fierce  insulting  faces; 
There  were  the  saints  who,  under  intolerable  pangs, 
had  glorified  God  by  meek  submission  to  his  will. 
And  all  the  time,  whilst  this  tumult  of  sublime  memo- 
rials  held  on  as  the  deep  chords  from  an  accompani* 
ment  in  the  bass,  I  saw  through  the  wide  central  field 
of  the  window,  where  the  glass  was  uncolored,  white 
fieecy  clouds  sailing  over  the  azure  depths  of  the  sky ; 
were  it  but  a  fragment  or  a  hint  of  such  a  cloud, 
Immediately  under  the  flash  of  my  sorrow-haunted  eye 
it  grew  and  shaped  itseif  into  visions  of  beds  with  white 
awny  curtains ;  and  in  the  oeds  ^y  sick  children 
lying  children,  that  were  tossing  in  anguish,  and  wet  o 


196  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

mg  clamorously  for  death.  God,  for  some  mystenoue 
reason,  could  not  suddenly  release  them  from  theii 
pain ;  but  he  suffered  the  beds,  as  it  seemed,  to  rise 
slowly  through  the  clouds ;  slowly  the  beds  ascended 
into  the  chambers  of  the  air;  slowly,  also,  his  arms 
descended  from  the  heavens,  that  he  and  his  young 
children,  whom  in  Judea,  once  and  forever,  he  had 
blessed,  though  they  must  pass  slowly  through  the 
dreadful  chasm  of  separation,  might  yet  meet  the 
sooner.  These  visions  were  self-sustained.  These 
visions  needed  not  that  any  sound  should  speak  to  me 
or  music  mould  my  feelings.  The  hint  from  the  litany, 
the  fragment  from  the  clouds, —  those  and  the  storied 
windows  were  sufficient.  But  not  the  less  the  blare  of 
ffie  tumultuous  organ  wrought  its  own  separate  crea¬ 
tions.  And  oftentimes  in  anthems,  when  the  mighty 
instrument  threw  its  vast  columns  of  sound,  fierce  yet 
melodious,  over  the  voices  of  the  choir,  —  when  it  rose 
high  in  arches,  as  might  seem,  surmounting  and  over¬ 
riding  the  strife  of  the  vocal  parts,  and  gathering  by 
strong  coercion  the  total  storm  into  unity,  —  sometimes 
I  seemed  to  walk  triumphantly  upon  those  clouds  which 
so  recently  I  had  looked  up  to  as  mementos  of  prostrate 
sorrow,  and  even  as  ministers  of  sorrow  in  its  creations  ' 
yes,  sometimes  under  the  transfigurations  of  musb  ] 
felt*  of  grief  itself  as  a  fiery  chariot  for  mounting  vic¬ 
toriously  above  the  causes  of  grief. 


*  I  felt  ”  —  The  reader  must  not  forget,  in  reading  this  anq 
ether  passages,  that,  though  a  child’s  feelings  are  spoken  of,  it  U 
not  the  child  who  speaks.  /  decipher  what  the  child  only  felt  in 
tipher.  And  so  far  is  this  distinction  or  this  explanation  from 
sointitig  to  anything  metaphysical  or  doubtful,  that  a  man  must 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


1 87 


I  point  so  often,  to  the  feelings,  the  ideas,  cr  the  cere- 
enemies  of  religion,  because  there  never  yet  was  pro* * 
found  grief  nor  profound  philosophy  which  did  not 
inosculate  at  many  points  with  profound  religion.  But 
1  request  the  reader  to  understand,  that  of  all  things  1 
was  not,  and  could  not  have  been,  a  child  trained  to 
talk  of  religion,  least  of  all  to  talk  of  it  controversially 
or  polemically.  Dreadful  is  the  picture,  which  in  books 
we  sometimes  find,  of  children  discussing  the  doctrines 
of  Christianity,  and  even  teaching  their  seniors  the 
boundaries  and  distinctions  between  doctrine  and  doc¬ 
trine.  And  it  has  often  struck  me  with  amazement, 
that  the  two  things  which  God  made  most  beautifm 
among  his  works,  namely,  infancy  and  pure  religion, 
should,  by  the  folly  of  man  (in  yoking  them  together 
on  erroneous  principles),  neutralize  each  other’s  beauty, 
or  even  form  a  combination  positively  hateful.  The 
religion  becomes  nonsense,  and  the  child  becomes  a 
hypocrite.  The  religion  is  transfigured  into  cant,  and 
the  innocent  child  into  a  dissembling  liar.^ 


grossly  unobservant  who  is  not  aware  of  what  I  am  here  noticing 
not  as  a  peculiarity  of  this  child  or  that,  but  as  a  necessity  of  alj 
children.  Whatsoever  in  a  man’s  mind  blossoms  and  expands  to 
his  own  consciousness  in  mature  life,  must  have  preexisted  in  germ 
during  his  infancy.  I,  for  instance,  did  not,  as  a  child,  consciously 
read  in  my  own  deep  feelings  these  ideas.  No,  not  at  all  ;  nor 
was  it  possible  for  a  child  to  do  so.  I,  the  child,  had  the  feel- 
,’ngi  ;  I,  the  man,  decipher  them.  In  the  child  lay  the  handwrit¬ 
ing  mysterious  to  him;  ir  me,  tne  interpretation  and  the  comment. 

*  I  except,  however,  one  case,  —  the  case  of  a  child  dying  of  an 
irgiziic  disorder,  so,  therefore,  as  to  die  slowly,  and  aware  of  its 
»wn  condition.  Because  such  a  'hild  is  solemnized,  and  sometimes, 
,n  a  partial  sensa,  inspired,  —  inspired  hr  the  depth  of  its  suffer¬ 
ings,  and  by  the  awfulness  of  its  prospect.  Such  a  child,  having  pe» 
ifl  \he  earthly  mind  in  many  things,  may  naturally  have  uut  off  ttur 


SS8 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

\ 

God,  be  assured,  takes  care  for  the  religion  of  chil* 
dren,  wheresoever  his  Christianity  exists.  Wheresoevei 
there  is  a  national  church  established,  to  which  a  child 
sees  his  friends  resorting,  —  wheresoever  he  beholds  al. 
whom  he  honors  periodically  prostrate  before  those 
illimitable  heavens  which  fill  to  overflowing  his  young 
adoring  heart, —  wheresoever  he  sees  the  s^ep  of  death 
falling  at  intervals  upon  men  and  women  whom  ne 
knows,  depth  as  confounding  to  the  plummet  of  his 
mind  as  those  heavens  ascend  beyond  his  power  to 
pursue,  —  there  take  you  no  thought  for  the  religion  of 
a  child,  any  more  than  for  the  lilies  how  they  shall  be 
arrayed,  or  for  the  ravens  how  they  shall  feed  their 
young. 

God  speaks  to  children,  also,  in  dreams,  and  by  the 
oracles  that  lurk  in  darkness.  But  in  solitude,  above 
all  things,  when  made  vocal  by  the  truths  and  services 
of  a  national  church,  God  holds  “  communion  undis¬ 
turbed  ”  with  children.  Solitude,  though  silent  as  light, 
is,  like  light,  the  mightiest  of  agencies ;  for  solitude  is 
essential  to  man.  All  men  come  int)  this  world  alone  ; 
all  leave  it  alone.  Even  a  little  child  has  a  dread, 
whispering  consciousness,  that  if  he  should  be  sum¬ 
moned  to  travel  into  God’s  presence,  no  gentle  nurco 
will  be  allowed  to  lead  him  by  the  hand,  nor  mother  to 
carry  him  in  her  arms,  nor  little  sister  to  share  hia 
trepidations.  King  and  priest,  wrarrior  and  ma.den, 

enildish  mind  in  all  things.  I  thereby,  speaking  for  myself  oniv 
acknowledge  tu  have  read  with  emotion  a  record  of  a  little  girl 
who,  knowing  herself  lor  months  to  be  amongst  the  elect  of  death 
became  anxious,  even  to  sickness  of  heart,  for  what  she  called  th# 
tonversion  of  her  father.  Her  filial  duty  and  revererce  Lad  beet 
iw  allowed  up  in  filial  love. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


188 


philosopher  and  child,  all  must  walk  those  mighty 
galleries  alone.  The  solitude,  therefore,  which  in  this 
world  appals  or  fascinates  a  child’s  heart,  is  but  the  echo 
of  a  far  deeper  solitude  through  which  already  he  has 
passed,  and  of  another  solitude,  deeper  still,  through 
which  he  has  to  pass  :  reflex  of  one  solitude  —  prefigur¬ 
ation  of  another. 

O,  burthen  of  solitude,  that  cleavest  to  man  through 
every  stage  of  his  being!  in  his  birth,  which  has  been, 
■ —  in  his  life,  which  is,  —  in  his  death,  which  shall  be,  — 
mighty  and  essential  solitude !  that  wast,  and  art,  and 
art  to  be;  —  thou  broodest,  like  the  spirit  of  God  moving 
upon  the  surface  of  the  deeps,  over  every  heart  that 
sleeps  in  the  nurseries  of  Christendom.  Like  the  vast 
laboratory  of  the  air,  which,  seeming  to  be  nothing,  or 
less  than  the  shadow  of  a  shade,  hides  within  itself  the 
principles  of  all  things,  solitude  for  the  child  is  the 
Agrippa’s  mirror  of  the  unseen  universe.  Deep  is  the 
solitude  in  life  of  millions  upon  millions,  who,  with 
hearts  welling  forth  love,  have  none  to  love  them. 
Deep  is  the  soHtude  of  those  who,  with  secret  griefs, 
have  none  to  pity  them.  Deep  is  the  solitude  of  those 
who.  fighting  with  doubts  or  darkness,  have  none  to 
counsel  them.  But  deeper  than  the  deepest  of  the?*' 
solitudes  is  that  which  broods  over  childhood,  bringing 
before  it,  at  intervals,  the  final  solitude  which  watches 
for  it,  and  is  waiting  for  it  within  the  gates  of  death. 
Header,  I  tell  you  a  truth,  and  hereafter  I  will  convince 
7011  of  this  truth,  that  for  a  Grecian  child  solitude  was 
Roth.ng,  but  for  a  Christian  child  it  has  become  the 
'>ower  of  God  and  the  mystery  of  God.  O,  mighty 
End  essential  solitude,  that  wast,  and  art,  and  art  Ut 


190 


A  SEQUEL  T\.  THE  CONFESSIONS 


De !  thou  kindling  under  the  torch  of  Christian  rev©' 
ations,  art  now  transfigured  forever,  and  hast  passed 
'rom  a  blank  negation  into  a  secret  hieroglyphic  from 
o-od,  shadowing  in  the  hearts  of  infancy  the  very  dim¬ 
mest  of  his  truths ! 

“  But  you  forget  her,”  says  the  cynic ;  t(  you  hap> 
vened  one  day  to  forget  this  sister  of  yours.”  Why 
not?  To  cite  the  beautiful  words  of  Wallenstein, - 

“  What  pang 

Is  permanent  with  man?  From  the  highest, 

As  from  the  vilest  thing  of  every  day, 

He  learns  to  wean  himself.  For  the  strong  hours 
Conquer  him.”  * 

Yes,  there  lies  the  fountain  of  human  oblivions?  It 
is  Time,  the  great  conqueror,  it  is  the  “strong  hours” 
whose  batteries  storm  every  passion  of  men.  For,  in 
the  fine  expression  of  Schiller,  “  Was  verschmerzte  nizht 
der  mensch  ?  ”  What  sorrow  is  in  man  that  will  not 
dually  fret  itself  to  sleep?  Conquering,  at  last,  gates 
of  brass,  or  pyramids  of  granite,  why  should  it  be  a 
marvel  to  us,  or  a  triumph  to  Time,  that  he  is  able  to 
conquer  a  frail  human  heart  ? 

However,  for  this  once,  my  cynic  must  submit  to  be 
told  that  he  is  wrong.  Doubtless,  it  is  presumption  m 
me  to  suggest  that  his  sneers  can  ever  go  awry,  any 
more  than  the  shafts  of  Apollo,  But  still,  however 
impossible  such  a  thing  is,  in  this  one  case  it  happens 
that  they  have.  And  when  it  happens  that  they  do 
not,  I  will  tell  you,  reader,  why,  in  my  opinion,  it  is 
and  you  will  see  that  it  warrants  no  exultation  in  the 


*  Death  of  Wallenstein ,  Act  v.  Scene  1  (Coleridge’s  Transln 

Hon),  relating  to  his  remembrances  of  the  younger  Piccolomin** 


OF  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


191 


cynic.  Repeatedly  1  have  heard  a  mother  reproaching 
herself  when  the  birth-day  revolved  of  the  little  daugh¬ 
ter  whom  so  suddenly  she  had  lost,  with  her  own  in¬ 
sensibility,  that  could  so  soon  need  a  remembrancer  of 
the  day.  But,  besides  that  the  majority  of  people  in 
this  world  (as  being  people  called  to  labor)  have  no 
time  left  for  cherishing  grief  by  solitude  and  medita¬ 
tion,  always  it  is  proper  to  ask  whether  the  memory  of 
the  lost  person  were  chiefly  dependent  upon  a  visual 
image.  No  death  is  usually  half  so  affecting  as  the 
death  of  a  young  child  from  two  to  five  years  old. 

But  yet,  for  the  same  reason  which  makes  the  grief 
more  exquisite,  generally  for  such  a  loss  it  is  likely  to 
be  more  perishable.  Wherever  the  image,  visually  or 
audibly,  of  the  lost  person,  is  more  essential  to  the  life 
of  the  grief,  there  the  grief  will  be  more,  transitory. 

Faces  begin  soon  (in  Shakspeare’s  fine  expression) 
t  “  dislimn  features  fluctuate ;  combinations  of  feature 
unsettle.  Even  the  expression  becomes  a  mere  idea 
Bat  you  can  describe  to  another,  but  not  an  image  that 
you  can  reproduce  for  yourself.  Therefore  it  is  that 
,he  faces  of  infants,  though  they  are  divine  as  flowers 
iii  a  savanna  of  Texas,  or  as  the  carolling  of  birds  in  a 
forest,  are,  like  flowers  in  Texas,  and  the  carolling  of 
birds  in  a  forest,  soon  overtaken  by  the  pursuing 
darkness  that  swallows  up  all  things  human.  All  glo¬ 
ries  of  flesh  vanish;  and  this,  the  glory  of  infantine 
Oeauty  seen  in  the  mirror  of  the  memory,  soonest  ot 
i.U.  But  when  the  departed  person?  worked  upon  your¬ 
self  by  power*  that  were  intellectual  and  moral,  — 
powers  in  the  flesh,  though  not  of  the  flesh, — the  memo¬ 
rials  in  your  own  heart  become  mor°  steadfast,  if  leaf 


192 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


effecting  at  the  first.  Now,  in  my  sister  were  com* 
bined  for  me  both  graces,  —  the  graces  of  childhood,  ana 
the  graces  of  expanding  thought.  Besides  that,  as 
regards  merely  the  personal  image,  always  the  smooth 
rotundity  of  baby  features  must  vanish  sooner,  as 
being  less  individual  than  the  features  in  a  child  cf 
eight,  touched  with  a  pensive  tenderness,  and  exalted 
ntc  a  characteristic  expression  by  a  premature  intcl* 
iect. 

Rarely  do  things  perish  from  my  memory  that  are 
worth  remembering.  Rubbish  dies  instantly.  Hence 
it  happens  that  passages  in  Latin  or  English  poets, 
which  I  never  could  have  read  but  once  (and  that 
thirty  years  ago),  often  begin  to  blossom  anew  when 
I  am  lying  awake,  unable  to  sleep.  I  become  a  dis¬ 
tinguished  compositor  in  the  darkness :  and,  with  my 
aerial  composing-stick,  sometimes  I  “set  up”  half  a 
page  of  verses,  that  would  be  found  tolerably  correct 
if  collated  with  the  volume  that  I  never  had  in  my 
hand  but  once.  I  mention  this  in  no  spirit  of  boasting. 
Far  from  it:  for,  on  the  contrary,  among  my  mortifica¬ 
tions  have  been  compliments  to  my  memory,  when, 
in  fact,  any  compliment  that  I  had  merited  was  due  to 
ihe  higher  faculty  of  an  electric  aptitude  for  seizing 
analogies,  and  by  means  of  those  aerial  pontoons  pass¬ 
ing  over  like  lightning  from  one  topic  to  another.  Still 
it  is  a  fact  that  this  pertinacious  life  of  memory  for 
things  that  simply  touch  the  ear,  without  touching  the 
consciousness,  does,  in  fact,  beset  me.  Said  but  once 
said  but  softly,  not  marked  at  all,  words  revive  before  me 
in  darkness  and  solitude ;  and  they  arrange  themselves 
gradually  into  sentences,  but  through  an  effort  soma 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


193 


Hines  of  a  distressing  Kind,  to  which  I  am  in  a  manner 
forced  to  become  a  party.  This  being  so,  it  was  no 
great  instance  of  that  power,  that  three  separate  pas- 
rages  in  the  funeral  service,  all  of  which  but  one  had 
escaped  mj’’  notice  at  the  time,  and  even  that  one  as 
fco  the  part  I  am  going  to  mention,  but  all  of  which 
must  have  struck  on  my  ear,  restored  themselves  per* 
fectly  when  I  was  lying  awake  in  bed;  and  though 
struck  by  their  beauty,  I  was  also  incensed  by  what 
seemed  to  me  the  harsh  sentiment  expressed  in  two  of 
these  passages.  I  will  cite  all  the  three  in  an  abbre¬ 
viated  form,  both  for  my  immediate  purpose,  and  for  the 
indirect  purpose  of  giving  to  those  unacquainted  with 
the  English  funeral  service  some  specimens  of  its 
beauty. 

The  first  passage  was  this:  “Forasmuch  as  it  hath 
pleased  Almighty  God,  of  his  great  mercy,  to  take  unto 
himself  the  soul  of  our  dear  sister  here  departed,  we 
therefore  commit  her  body  to  the  ground,  earth  to  earth, 
ashes  to  ashes,  dust  to  dust,  in  sure  and  certain  hope  — 
the  resurrection  to  eternal  life.”  ^  # 

I  pause  to  remark  that  a  sublime  effect  arises  at  this 
point  through  a  sudden  rapturous  interpolation  from  the 
Apocalypse,  which,  according  to  the  rubric,  “  shall  be 
raid  or  sung;”  but  always  let  it  be  sung,  and  by  the  full 
chc'r: 

“1  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto  me,  Write 
from  henceforth  blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the 
Lord ;  even  so  saith  the  Spirit  for  they  rest  from  theif 
abors.” 

The  second  passage,  almost  ’mmediately  succeeding 
8c  this  awful  burst  of  heavenly  trumpets,  and  the  one 

13 


i.94 


A  SEQUEL  TO  TIIE  CONFESSIONS 


which  more  particularly  offended  me,  though  otherw^sm 
even  then,  in  my  seventh  year,  I  could  not  but  bs 
touched  by  its  beauty,  was  this:- — “Almighty  God 
with  whom  do  live  the  spirits  of  them  that  depart  hence 
in  the  Lori,  and  with  whom  the  souls  of  the  faithful, 
after  they  are  delivered  from  the  burden  of  the  flesh, 
sre  in  joy  and  felicity ;  we  give  thee  hearty  thanks  that 
it  hath  pleased  thee  to  deliver  this  our  sister  out  of  the 
miseries  of  this  sinful  world ;  beseeching  thee,  that  if 
may  please  thee  of  thy  gracious  goodness  shortly  to 
accomplish  the  number  of  thine  elect,  and  to  hasten  thy 
kingdom.”  #  #  #  # 

In  what  world  was  I  living  when  a  man  (calling 
nimself  a  man  of  God)  could  stand  up  publicly  and 
give  God  “hearty  thanks”  that  he  had  taken  away 
my  sister?  But,  young  child,  understand  —  taken  her 
away  from  the  miseries  of  this  sinful  world.  O  yes  ! 
1  hear  what  you  say ;  I  understand  that ;  but  that 
makes  no  difference  at  all.  She  being  gone,  this  world 
doubtless  (as  you  say)  is  a  world  of  unhappiness. 
But  for  me  ubi  Ccesar ,  ibi  Roma  —  where  my  sister 
was,  there  was  paradise;  no  matter  whether  in  heaven 
above,  or  on  the  earth  beneath.  And  he  had  taken  her 
away,  cruel  priest!  of  his  “ great  mercy!”  I  did  not 
oresume,  child  though  I  was,  to  think  rebelliously 
against  that.  The  reason  was  not  any  hypocritical  or 
canting  submission  where  my  heart  yielded  none,  but 
!>ecause  already  my  deep  musing  intellect  had  per¬ 
ceived  a  mystery  and  a  labyrinth  in  the  economies  of 
this  world.  God,  I  saw,  moved  not  as  we  moved  — 
walked  not  as  we  walked  —  thought  not  as  we  think 
Still  I  saw  no  mercy  to  myself,  a  poor,  frail,  dependent 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


m 


ireature,  torrv  away  so  suddenly  from  the  proj  on 
which  altogether  it  depended.  O  yes  !  perhaps  there 
was ;  and  many  years  after  I  came  to  suspect  it, 
Nevertheless  it  was  a  benignity  tnat  pointed  far  ahead ; 
such  as  by  a  child  could  not  have  been  perceived, 
because  then  the  great  arch  had  not  come  round ;  comd 
not  have  been  recognized,  if  it  had  come  round ;  could 
not  have  been  valued,  if  it  had  even  been  dimly  recog¬ 
nized. 

t 

Finally,  as  the  closing  prayer  in  the  whole  service, 
stood  this,  which  I  acknowledged  then,  and  now  ac¬ 
knowledge,  as  equally  beautiful  and  consolatory ;  for  in 
this  was  no  harsh  peremptory  challenge  to  the  infirmi¬ 
ties  of  human  grief,  as  to  a  thing  not  meriting  notice  in 
a  religious  rite.  On  the  contrary,  there  was  a  gracious 
condescension  from  the  great  apostle  to  grief,  as  to  a 
passion  that  he  might  perhaps  himself  have  participated. 

“  O,  merciful  God!  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  who  is  the  resurrection  and  the  life,  in  whom 
whosoever  believeth  shall  live,  though  he  die ;  who  also 
*aught  us  by  his  holy  apostle  St.  Paul  not  to  be  sorry, 
as  men  without  hope,  for  them  that  sleep  in  him;  ws 
meekly  beseech  thee,  oh  Father!  to  raise  us  from  the 
death  of  sin  unto  the  life  of  righteousness;  that,  when 
we  shall  depart  this  life,  we  may  rest  in  him  as  our  hope 
i-s  —  that  this  our  sister  doth.” 

Ah,  that  was  beautiful,  —  that  was  heavenly!  We 
might  be  sorry,  we  had  leave  to  be  sorry;  only  rot 
without  hop  3.  And  we  were  by  hope  tc  rest  in  Him, 
is  this  our  sister  doth.  And  nmvsoever  a  man  may 
thmk  that  he  is  without  hope,  I,  that  have  read  the 
writing  upon  these  great  abysses  ot  grief,  and  viewed 


m 


A  SEQUEL  TO  1HE  CONFESSIONS 


their  shadows  under  the  correction  of  mightier  shadows 
from  deeper  abysses  since  then,  abysses  cf  aboriginal 
fear  and  eldest  darkness,  in  which  yet  I  believe  that 
nil  hope  had  not  absolutely  died,  know  that  he  is  in  a 
natural  error.  If,  for  a  moment,  I  and  so  many  others, 
wallowing  in  the  dust  of  affliction,  could  yet  rise  up 
suddenly  like  the  dry  corpse *  *  which  stood  upright  in 
the  glory  of  life  when  touched  by  the  bones  of  the 
prophet;  if  in  those  vast  choral  anthems,  heard  by  my 
childish  ear,  the  voice  of  God  wrapt  itself  as  in  a  cloud 
of  music,  saying  —  “  Child,  that  sorrowest,  I  command 
thee  to  rise  up  and  ascend  for  a  season  into  my  heaven 
of  heavens,”  —  then  it  was  plain  that  despair,  that  the 
anguish  of  darkness,  wras  not  essential  to  such  sorrow, 
but  might  come  and  go  even  as  light  comes  and  goes 
upon  our  troubled  earth. 

Yes!  the  light  may  come  and  go;  grief  may  wax 
and  wane ;  grief  may  sink ;  and  grief  again  may  rise 
as  in  impassioned  minds  oftentimes  it  does,  even  to  the 
heaven  of  heavens ;  but  there  is  a  necessity  that,  if 
too  much  left  to  itself  in  solitude,  finally  it  will  descend 
.nto  a  depth  from  which  there  is  no  reascent ;  into  a 
disease  which  seems  no  disease;  into  a  languishing 
which,  from  its  very  sweetness,  perplexes  the  mind,  and 
l «  fancied  to  be  very  health.  Witchcraft  has  seized 
&pon  you,  —  nympholepsy  has  struck  you.  Now  you 
rave  no  more.  You  acquiesce;  nay,  you  are  passion- 


*  “  Like  the  dn/  corpse  which  stood  upright .” —  See  the  Secant j 
Book  of  Kings,  chapter  xiii.  v.  20  and  21.  Thii!y  years  ago  this 
•impressive  incident  was  made  the  subject  of  a  large  altar-piece 
by  Mr.  Allston,  an  interesting  American  artist,  then  resident  u 

*03.407 . 


OF  XX  ENGLISH  OPITJU-EArEE. 


191 

fctely  del  ghted  in  your  condition.  Sweet  becomes  tbe 
grave,  because  you  also  hope  immediately  to  travel 
shither:  luxurious  is  the  sQparation,  because  only  per¬ 
haps  for  a  fev7  weeks  shall  it  exist  for  you ;  and  it  will 
then  prove  but  the  bvief  summer  night  that  had  retarded 
a  little,  by  a  refinement  of  rapture,  the  heavenly  dawn 
of  reunion.  Inevitable  sometimes  it  is  in  solitude  —  tha  I 
this  should  happen  with  minds  morbidly  meditative ; 
that,  when  we  stretch  out  our  arms  in  darkness,  vainly 
striving  to  draw  back  the  sweet  faces  that  have  vanished, 
slowly  arises  a  new  stratagem  of  grief,  and  we  say,  — 
“  Be  it  that  they  no  more  come  back  to  us,  yet  what  hin¬ 
ders  but  we  should  go  to  them  ?” 

Perilous  is  that  crisis  for  the  young.  In  its  effect  per* 
fectly  the  same  as  the  ignoble  witchcraft  of  the  poor  Af¬ 
rican  Obccih ,*  this  sublimer  witchcraft  of  grief  will,  if  left 
to  follow  its  own  natural  course,  terminate  in  the  same 
catastrophe  of  death.  Poetry,  which  neglects  no  phe¬ 
nomena  that  are  interesting  to  the  heart  of  man,  has 
Bcmetimes  touched  a  little 

“On  the  sublime  attractions  of  the  grave.” 


*  “ African  Obeah .” —  Thirty  years  ago  it  would  not  have  been 
accessary  to  say  one  word  of  the  Obi  or  Obeah  magic ;  because  at 
that  time  several  distinguished  writers  (Miss  Edgeworth,  for  in¬ 
stance,  in  her  Belinda)  had  made  use  of  this  superstition  in  fic¬ 
tions,  and  because  the  remarkable  history  of  Three-fingertd  Jack, 
a  story  brought  upon  the  stage,  had  made  the  superstition  notorious 
bs  a  fact.  Now,  however,  so  long  after  the  case  has  probably 
oassed  out  of  the  public  mind,  i*  may  be  proper  to  mention,  that 
when  an  Obeah  man  —  that  is,  a  profes&or  of  ais  dark  collusion 
with  human  fears  and  human  -redulity —  had  once  woven  his  dread- 
fal  net  of  ghostly  terrors,  and  had  thrown  it  over  h’s  selected  vic¬ 
tim,  Tainly  did  that  victim  flutter,  struggle,  languish  in  the  mesbesy 
unless  the  spells  were  reversed,  he  generally  perished;  and  with 
wj  e  wound,  except  from  his  own  too  domineerirg  fancy. 


*98 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


But  you  think  that  these  attractions,  existing  at  time4 
for  the  adult,  could  not  exist  for  the  child.  Understand 
that  you  are  wrong.  Understand  that  these  attractions 
do  exist  fcr  the  child ;  and  perhaps  as  much  more 
strongly  than  -they  can  exist  for  the  adult,  by  the  whole 
difference  between  the  concentration  of  a  childish  love, 
and  the  inevitable  distraction  upon  multiplied  objects  of 
any  love  that  can  affect  any  adult.  There  is  a  German 
superstition  (well  known  by  a  popular  translation)  of  the 
Erl-king’s  Daughter,  who  fixes  her  love  upon  some  child, 
and  seeks  to  wile  him  away  into  her  own  shadowy 
kingdom  in  forests. 

“  Who  is  it  that  rides  through  the  forest  so  fast? M 

ft  is  a  knight,  who  carries  his  child  before  him  on 
the  saddle.  The  Erl-king’s  Daughter  rides  on  his  right 
hand,  and  still  whispers  temptations  to  the  infant  audible 
only  to  him. 

“  If  thou  wilt,  dear  baby,  with  me  go  away, 

We  will  see  a  fine  show,  we  will  play  a  fine  plav 

The  consent  of  the  baby  is  essential  to  her  success. 
And  finally  she  does  succeed.  Other  charms,  other 
temptations,  would  have  been  requisite  for  me.  My 
intellect  was  too  advanced  for  those  fascinations.  But 
could  the  Erl-king’s  Daughter  have  revealed  herself  to 
mev  and  promised  to  lead  me  where  my  sister  was,  she 
,nignt  have  wiled  me  by  the  hand  into  the  dimmest 
forests  upon  earth.  Languishing  was  my  condition  at 
lhat  time.  Still  I  languished  for  things  “which”  (a 
voice  from  heaven  seemed  to  answer  through  my  own 
heart)  “cannot  be  granted;”  and  which,  when  agni* 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


Ibb 

languished,  again  the  voice  repented,  “cam lot  foft 
granted.” 


Well  it  was  for  me  that,  at  this  crisis,  I  was  sum* 
moned  to  put  on  the  harness  of  life  by  commencing  my 
classical  studies  under  one  of  my  guardians,  a  clergyman 
of  the  English  Church,  and  (so  far  as  regarded  Latin) 
a  most  accomplished  scholar. 

At  tne  very  commencement  of  my  new  studies  there 
happened  an  incident  which  afflicted  me  much  for  a  shorn 
time,  and  left  behind  a  gloomy  impression,  that  suffering 
and  wretchedness  were  diffused  amongst  all  creatures  that 
breathe.  A  person  had  given  me  a  kitten.  There  are 
three  animals  which  seem,  beyond  all  others,  to  reflect 
the  beauty  of  human  infancy  in  two  of  its  elements  — 
namely,  joy  and  guileless  innocence,  though  less  in  its 
third  element  of  simplicity,  because  that  requires  lan¬ 
guage  for  its  full  expression :  these  three  animals  are 
the  kitten,  thn  lamb,  and  the  fawn.  Other  creatures 
may  be  as  happy,  but  they  do  not  show  it  so  much 
Great  was  the  love  which  poor  silly  I  had  for  this 
little  kitten;  but,  as  I  left  home  at  ten  in  the  morning, 
and  did  not  return  till  near  five  in  the  afternoon,  I  was 
obliged,  with  some  anxiety,  to  throw  it  for  those  seven 
hours  upon  its  own  discretion,  as  infirm  a  basis  for 
reasonable  hope  as  could  je  imagined.  I  did  not  wish 
the  kitten,  indeed,  at  all  less  foolish  than  it  was,  ex* 
tept  just  when  I  was  leaving  home,  ind  then  its  exceed* 
'"'g  folly  gave  me  a  pang.  Just  about  that  time, 
A  happened  that  we  had  received,  as  a  present  from 
Leicestershire,  a  fine  young  Newfoundland  dog  whti 


100 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


*vas  under  a  cloud  of  disgrace  for  crimes  of  Ins  youth 
ful  blood  committed  in  that  county.  One  day  he  hat 
taken  too  great  a  liberty  with  a  pretty  little  cousin  of 

mine,  Emma  H - ,  about  four  years  old.  He  had.  in 

fact,  bitten  off  her  cheek,  which,  remaining  attached  b} 
a  shred,  was,  through  the  energy  of  a  governess,  re« 
placed,  and  subsequently  healed  without  a  scar.  Ilis 
lame  being  Turk ,  he  was  immediately  pronounced  by 
the  best  Greek  scholar  of  that  neighborhood,  imowfiot, 
(that  is,  named  significantly,  or  reporting  his  nature  in 
his  name).  But  as  Miss  Emma  confessed  to  having 
been  engaged  in  taking  away  a  bone  from  him,  on  which 
subject  no  dog  can  be  taught  to  understand  a  joke,  it 
did  not  strike  our  own  authorities  that  he  was  to  be 
considered  in  a  state  of  reprobation  ;  and  as  our  gar¬ 
dens  (near  to  a  great  town)  were,  on  account  chiefly  of 
melons,  constantly  robbed,  it  was  held  that  a  moderate 
degree  of  fierceness  was  rather  a  favorable  trait  in  his 
character.  My  poor  kitten,  it  was  supposed,  had  been 
engaged  in  the  same  playful  trespass  upon  Turk’s 
property  as  my  Leicestershire  cousin,  and  Turk  laid 
ner  dead  on  the  spot.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  my 
grief  when  the  case  was  made  known  to  me  at  fire 
o’clock  in  the  evening,  by  a  man’s  holding  out  the  little 
creature  dead  :  she  that  I  had  left  so  full  of  glorious  life 
—  life  which  even  in  a  kitten  is  infinite,  —  was  now 
stretched  in  motionless  repose.  I  remember  that  there 
was  a  large  coal-stack  in  the  yard.  I  dropped  my  Latin 
books,  sat  down  upon  a  huge  block  of  coa',  and  burst 
into  a  passion  of  tears.  The  man,  struck  with  m\ 
tumultuous  grief,  hurried  into  the  house;  and  front 
tits  lower  regions  deployed  instantly  the  women  of  the 


CF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


201 


laundry  and  the .  kitchen.  No  one  subject  is  s&  abso« 
lutely  sacred,  and  enjoys  so  classical  a  sanctity  among 
servant-girls,  as  1.  Grief;  and  2.  Love  which  is  unfor¬ 
tunate.  All  the  young  women  took  me  up  in  their 
arms  and  kissed  me ;  and,  last  of  all,  an  elderly  woman, 
who  was  the  cook,  not  only  kissed  me,  but  wept  so 
audibly,  from  some  suggestion  doubtless  of  grief  per¬ 
sonal  to  herself,  that  1  threw  my  arms  about  her  neck 
and  kissed  her  also.  It  is  probable,  as  I  now  suppose, 
that  some  account  of  my  grief  for  my  sister  had  reached 
them.  Else  I  was  never  allowed  to  visit  their  region  of 
the  house.  But,  however  that  might  be,  afterwards  it 
struck  me,  that  if  I  had  met  with  so  much  sympathy, 
or  with  any  sympathy  at  all,  from  the  servant  chiefly 
connected  with  myself  in  the  desolating  grief  I  had 
suffered,  possibly  I  should  not  have  been  so  profoundly 
shaken. 

But  did  I  in  the  mean  time  feel  anger  towards  Turk? 
Not  the  least.  And  the  reason  was  this:  —  My  guard¬ 
ian,  who  taught  me  Latin,  was  in  the  habit  of  coming 
over  and  dining  at  my  mother’s  table  whenever  he 
pleased.  On  these  occasions,  he,  who  like  myself  pitied 
dependent  animals,  wrent  invariably  into  the  yard  of  the 
offices,  taking  me  with  him,  and  unchained  the  dogs. 
There  were  two,  —  Grim,  a  mastiff,  and  Turk,  our 
young  friend.  My  guardian  was  a  bold,  athletic  man, 
and  delighted  in  dogs.  He  toid  me,  which  also  my  own 
heart  told  me,  that  these  poor  dogs  languished  out 
their  lives  under  this  confinement.  The  moment  that  J 
nnd  my  guardian  [ego  et  rex  meus )  appeared  in  sight  of 
She  two  kennels,  it  is  impossible  to  express  the  joy  of 
he  dogs.  Turk  was  usually  restless;  Grim  slep  away 


E02  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

nis  life  in  surliness.  But  at  the  sight  of  us, —  of  mj 
little  insignificant  self  and  my  six-foot  guardian, — both 
dogs  yelled  with  delight.  We  unfastened  their  chains 
with  our  own  hands,  they  licking  our  hands  ;  and  as  to 
tnyself  licking  my  miserable  little  face  ;  and  at  on€ 
pound  they  reentered  upon  their  natural  heritage  cf 
soy.  Always  we  took  them  through  the  fields,  where 
they  molested  nothing,  and  closed  with  giving  them  i\ 
cold  bath  in  the  brook  which  bounded  my  father’s  prop¬ 
erty.  What  despair  must  have  possessed  our  dogs  when 
they  were  taken  back  to  their  hateful  prisons !  and  I, 
for  my  part,  not  enduring  to  see  their  misery,  slunk 
away  when  the  rechaining  commenced.  It  was  in  vain 
to  tell  me  that  all  people,  who  had  property  out  of  doors 
to  protect,  chained  up  dogs  in  the  same  way.  This  only 
proved  the  extent  of  the  oppression ;  for  a  monstrous 
oppression  it  did  seem,  that  creatures,  boiling  with  life 
and  the  desires  of  life,  should  be  thus  detained  in  cap¬ 
tivity  until  they  were  set  free  by  death.  That  liberation 
visited  poor  Grim  and  Turk  sooner  than  any  of  us  ex¬ 
pected,  for  they  were  both  poisoned,  within  the  year  that 
followed,  by  a  party  of  burglars.  At  the  end  of  that  year, 
l  was  reading  the  iEneid  ;  and  it  struck  me,  who  remem¬ 
bered  the  howling  recusancy  of  Turk ,  as  a  peculiarly  fine 
circumstance,  introduced  amongst  the  horrors  of  Tar* 
tarus,  that  sudden  gleam  of  powerful  animals,  full  of  lifts 
und  conscious  rights,  rebelling  against  chains  :  — 

“  Iraeque  leonum 
Vincia  recusantum.”  * 


*  What  follows,  I  think  (for  book  I  have  none  of  any  kind  vrhe 
his  paper  is  proceeding),  namely :  ct  se*&  sub  nacte  j-uden'um,  L 


OF  AN  EUGLiSH  OPIUM-EATER.  200 

Virgil  had  doubtless  picked  up  that  gem  in  his  visits  at 
eeding-time  to  the  cavece  of  the  Roman  amphitheatre. 
But  the  rights  of  brute  creatures  to  a  mercifu.,  forbear¬ 
ance  on  the  part  of  man  could  not  enter  into  the 
feeblest  conceptions  of  one  belonging  to  a  nation  that 
(although  too  noble  to  be  wantonly  cruel)  yet  in  the 
game  amphitheatre  manifested  so  little  regard  even  to 
human  rights.  Under  Christianity  the  condition  of 
the  brute  has  improved,  and  will  improve  much  more. 
There  is  ample  room.  For,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  that  the 
commonest  vice  of  Christian  children,  too  often  surveyed 
with  careless  eyes  by  mothers  that  in  their  human  rela- 
tions  are  full  of  kindness,  is  cruelty  to  the  inferior  crea¬ 
tures  thrown  upon  their  mercy.  For  my  own  part, 
what  had  formed  the  ground-work  of  my  happiness 
(since  joyous  was  my  nature,  though  overspread  with 
h  cloud  of  sadness)  had  been  from  the  first  a  heart 
overflowing  with  love.  And  I  had  drunk  in  too  pro¬ 
foundly  the  spirit  of  Christianity  from  our  many  nursery 
readings,  not  to  read  also  in  its  divine  words  the  justi¬ 
fication  of  my  own  tendencies.  That  which  I  desired 
was  the  thing  which  I  ought  to  desire ;  the  mercy  that 
l  loved  was  the  mercy  that  God  had  blessed.  From 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  resounded  forever  in  my 
sars  —  “Blessed  are  the  merciful!”  I  needed  not  to 
add  —  “  For  they  shall  obtain  mercy.”  By  lips  so  holy 
and  when  standing  in  the  atmosphere  of  truths  so  divine, 
simply  to  have  been  blessed  —  that  was  a  sufficient  rati¬ 
fication  ;  every  truth  so  revealed,  and  so  hallowed  by 


\robably  a  mistake  of  Virgil’s  ;  the  lions  did  not  roar  because 
light  was  approaching,  but  because  night  brought  with  it  their 
-tincipal  meal,  and  consequently  the  impatience  of  hunger 


204 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


position,  starts  into  sudden  life,  and  becomes  to  itself 
its  own  authentication,  needing  no  proof  to  convince,  -  « 
needing  no  promise  to  allure. 

It  may  well  be  supposed,  therefore,  that  having 
bo  early  awakened  within  me  what  may  be  philosoph¬ 
ically  called  the  transcendental  justice  of  Christianity 
l  blamed  not  Turk  for  yielding  to  the  coercion  of  his 
nature.  He  had  killed  the  object  of  my  love.  But, 
asides  that  he  was  under  the  constraint  of  a  primary 
\ppetite,  Turk  was  himself  the  victim  of  a  killing 
oppression.  He  was  doomed  to  a  fretful  existence  so 
Iono-  as  he  should  exist  at  all.  Nothing  could  reconcile) 
this  to  my  benignity,  which  at  that  time  rested  upon 
two  pillars, —  upon  the  deep,  deep  heart  which  God  had 
given  to  me  at  my  birth,  and  upon  exquisite  health. 
Up  to  the  age  of  two,  and  almost  through  that  entire 
space  of  twenty-four  months,  I  had  suffered  from  ague ; 
but  when  that  left  me,  all  germs  and  traces  of  ill 
health  fled  away  forever,  except  only  such  (and  those 
how  curable !)  as  I  inherited  from  my  school-boy  dis¬ 
tresses  in  London,  or  had  created  by  means  of  opium 
Even  the  long  ague  was  not  without  ministrations  of 
favor  to  my  prevailing  temper;  and,  on  the  whole,  no 
subject  for  pity,  since  naturally  it  won  for  me  the  sweet 
caresses  of  female  tenderness,  both  young  and  old.  I 
was  a  little  petted ;  but  you  see  by  this  time,  reader 
that  I  must  have  been  too  much  of  a  philosopher, 
even  in  the  yea-  one  ab  ur'be  condita  of  my  frail 
earthly  tenement,  to  abuse  such  indulgence.  It  also 
won  for  me  a  ride  on  horseback  whenever  the  weather 
permitted.  I  was  placed  on  a  pillow,  in  front  of 
tankered  old  mai,  upon  a  large  white  horse  not 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  20& 

foung  as  1  was,  but  still  showing  traces  of  blood. 
And  even  the  old  man,  who  was  both  the  oldest  and 
ihe  worst  of  the  three,  talked  with  gentleness  to 
myself,  reserving  his  surliness  for  all  the  rest  of  the 
w ) id. 

These  things  pressed  with  a  gracious  power  of  incu 
bation  upon  my  predispositions ;  and  in  my  overflowing 
love  I  did  things  fitted  to  make  the  reader  laugh,  and 
sometimes  fitted  to  bring  myself  into  perplexity.  One 
instance  from  a  thousand  may  illustrate  the  combi¬ 
nation  of  both  effects.  At  four  years  old,  I  had  repeat¬ 
ed.}  seen  the  housemaid  raising  her  long  broom,  and 
pursuing  (generally  destroying)  a  vagrant  spider.  The 
holiness  of  all  life,  in  my  eyes,  forced  me  to  devise 
plots  for  saving  the  poor  doomed  wretch  ;  and  think¬ 
ing  intercession  likely  to  prove  useless,  my  policy 
was,  to  draw  off  the  housemaid  on  pretence  of  show¬ 
ing  her  a  picture,  until  the  spider,  already  en  route , 
should  have  had  time  to  escape.  Very  soon,  however, 
the  shrewd  housemaid,  marking  the  coincidence  of 
these  picture  exhibitions  with  the  agonies  of  fugitive 
spiders,  detected  my  stratagem ;  so  that,  if  the  reader 
will  pardon  an  expression  borrowed  from  the  street, 
.lenceforwards  the  picture  was  “  no  go.”  However,  as 
she  approved  of  my  motive,  she  told  me  of  the  many 
murders  that  the  spider  had  committed,  and  next 
>  .vhich  was  worse)  of  the  many  that  he  certainly  wcidd 
commit,  if  reprieved.  This  staggered  me.  I  could 
have  gladly  forgiven  the  past  but  it  did  seem  a  false 
m^rcy  to  spare  one  spider  in  order  to  scatter  death 
ur.tmgst  fifty  flies.  I  thought  timidly,  for  a  moment, 
suggesting  that  people  sometimes  repented,  ard  that 


£06  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

he  might  repent;  but  I  checked  myself,  on  considering 
that  I  had  never  read  any  account,  and  that  she  might 
laugh  at  the  idea,  of  a  penitent  spider.  To  desist  was  a 
necessity,  in  these  circumstances.  But  the  difficulty 
which  the  housemaid  had  suggested  did  not  depart, 
it  troubled  my  musing  mind  to  perceive  that  the  web 
fare  of  one  creature  might  stand  upon  the  mm  of 
another;  and  the  case  of  the  spider  remained  thence- 
torwards  even  more  perplexing  to  my  understanding 
than  it  was  painful  to  my  heart. 

The  reader  is  likely  to  differ  from  me  upon  the  ques¬ 
tion,  moved  by  recurring  to  such  experiences  of  child¬ 
hood,  whether  much  value  attaches  to  the  perceptions 
and  intellectual  glimpses  of  a  child.  Children,  like 
men,  range  through  a  gamut  that  is  infinite,  of  tem¬ 
peraments  and  characters,  ascending  from  the  very 
dust  below  our  feet  to  highest  heaven.  I  have  seen 
children  that  were  sensual,  brutal,  devilish.  But, 
thanks  be  to  the  vis  medicatriz  of  human  nature,  and 
to  the  goodness  of  God,  these  are  as  rare  exhibitions 
as  ail  other  monsters.  People  thought,  when  seeing 
such  odious  travesties  and  burlesques  upon  lovely 
human  infancy,  that  perhaps  the  little  wretches  mignt 
be  kilerops.y*  Yet,  possibly  (it  has  since  occurred  to 
me),  even  these  children  of  the  fiend,  as  they  seemed, 
might  have  one  chord  in  their  horrible  natures  that 
'inswered  to  the  call  of  some  sublime  purpose.  There 
is  a  mimic  instance  of  this  kind,  often  found  amongs* 
ourselves  in  natures  that  are  not  really  “  horrible,”  bu4 

*  “  Kilcrops .” —  See,  amongst  Southey’s  ( arly  poems,  one  upns 
ibis  superstition.  Southey  argues  contra,  hut,  for  my  part, 
Vnorld  have  been  more  disposed  to  hold  a  brief  on  the  other  aid* 


OP  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  207 

»vhi  ;h  seem  such  to  persons  viewing  them  from  a 
station  not  sufficiently  central :  —  Always  there  are 
mischievous  boys  in  a  neighborhood, — boys  who  tie 
canisters  to  the  tails  of  cats  belonging  to  ladies,  — -a 
thing  which  greatly  I  disapprove  ;  and  who  rob  orchards, 
—  a  thing  which  slightly  I  disapprove;  and,  behold! 
the  next  day,  on  meeting  the  injured  ladies,  they  say  to 
me,  “  0,  my  dear  friend,  never  pretend  to  argue  for 
him !  This  boy,  we  shall  all  see,  will  come  to  be 
hanged.”  Well,  that  seems  a  disagreeable  prospect 
for  all  parties ;  so  I  change  the  subject ;  and,  lo !  five 
years  later,  there  is  an  English  frigate  fighting  with  a 
frigate  of  heavier  metal  (no  matter  of  what  nation). 
The  noble  captain  has  manoeuvred  as  only  his  coun¬ 
trymen  can  manoeuvre ;  he  has  delivered  his  broad¬ 
sides  as  only  the  proud  islanders  can  deliver  them. 
Suddenly  he  sees  the  opening  for  a  coup-de-main  • 
through  his  speaking-trumpet  he  shouts,  “  Where  are 
my  hoarders  ?  ”  And  instantly  rise  upon  the  deck, 
with  the  gayety  of  boyhood,  in  white  shirt-sleeves 
bound  with  black  ribands,  fifty  men,  the  elite  of  the 
crew;  and,  behold!  at  the  very  head  of  them,  cutlass 
in  hand,  is  our  friend,  the  tier  of  canisters  to  the  tails 
of  ladies’  cats,  —  a  thing  which  greatly  I  disapprove, 
and  also  the  robber  of  orchards,  —  a  thing  which  slightly 
disapprove.  But  here  is  a  man  that  will  not  suffcs 
you  either  greatly  or  slightly  to  disapprove  him.  Fire 
celestial  burns  in  his  eye;  his  nation  —  his  glorious 
nation  —  is  in  his  mind ,  himseif  he  regards  no  more 
than  the  life  f  a  cat,  or  the  ruin  of  a  canister.  On 
*he  deck  of  the  enemy  he  throws  nimself  with  rapture 
%nd  if  he  is  amongst  the  kihed, --if  he,  for  an  ooject  sc 


208 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


gloriously  unselfish,  lays  clown  with  joy  tiia  life  and 
glittering  youth,  —  mark  this,  that,  perhaps,  he  will  no 
be  the  least  in  heaven. 

But  coming  back  to  the  case  of  childhood,  I  maintain 
steadfastly  that  into  all  the  elementary  feelings  of  man 
children  look  with  more  searching  gaze  than  adults. 
My  opinion  is,  that  where  circumstances  favoi,  where 
the  heart  is  deep,  where  humility  and  tenderness  exist 
in  strength,  where  the  situation  is  favorable  as  to  soli 
tude  and  as  to  genial  feelings,  children  have  a  specific 
power  of  contemplating  the  truth,  which  departs  as 
they  enter  the  world.  It  is  clear  to  me,  that  children 
upon  elementary  paths  which  require  no  knowledge 
of  the  world  to  unravel,  tread  more  firmly  than  men 
have  a  more  pathetic  sense  of  the  beauty  which  lies 
in  justice ;  and,  according  to  the  immortal  ode  of  our 
great  laureate  [ode  “  On  the  Intimations  of  Immortality 
in  Childhood”],  a  far  closer  communion  with  God.  I 
if  you  observe,  do  not  much  intermeddle  with  religion, 
properly  so  called.  My  path  lies  on  the  interspace 
between  religion  and  philosophy,  that  connects  them 
both.  Yet  here,  for  once,  I  shall  trespass  on  grounds 
not  properly  mine,  and  desire  you  to  observe  in  St. 
Matthew,  chapter  xxi.,  and  verse  15,  who  were  those 
that,  crying  in  the  temple,  made  the  first  public  recog¬ 
nition  of  Christianity.  Then,  if  you  say,  “  O,  but, 
children  echo  what  they  hear,  and  are  no  independent 
authorities .  ”  I  must  request  you  to  extend  your  read¬ 
ing  into  verse  16,  where  you  will  find  that  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  these  children,  as  bearing  an  original  value 
■was  ratified  by  the  highest  testimony;  and  the  reccg 
feition  of  these  children  did  itself  receive  a  hea*enl* 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATES, 


209 


recognition  And  this  :ould  not  have  been,  unless  there 
were  children  in  Jerusalem  who  saw  into  truth  w’th  a 
far  sharper  eye  than  Sanhedrims  and  Rabbis. 

It  is  impossible,  with  respect  to  any  memorable  grief 
that  it  can  be  adequately  exhibited  so  as  to  indicate 
the  enormity  of  the  convulsion  which  really  it  caused, 
without  viewing  it  under  a  variety  of  aspects, --a  thing 
which  is  here  almost  necessary  for  the  effect  of  propor¬ 
tion  to  what  follows :  1st,  for  instance,  in  its  immediate 
pressure,  so  stunning  and  confounding;  2dly,  in  ifca 
oscillations,  as  in  its  earlier  agitations,  frantic  with 
tumults,  that  borrow  the  Avings  of  the  winds ;  or  in  its 
diseased  impulses  of  sick  languishing  desire,  through 
which  sorrow  transforms  itself  to  a  sunny  angel,  that 
beckons  us  to  a  sweet  repose.  These  phases  of  revolv¬ 
ing  affection  I  have  already  sketched.  And  I  shall 
also  sketch  a  third,  that  is,  where  the  affliction,  seem¬ 
ingly  hushing  itself  to  sleep,  suddenly  soars  upwards 
again  upon  combining  with  another  mode  of  sorrow, 
namely,  anxiety  without  definite  limits,  and  the  trouble 
of  a  reproaching  conscience.  As  sometimes,^  upon  the 
English  lakes,  water-fowl  that  have  careered  in  the  air 
until  the  eye  is  wearied  with  the  eternal  wheelings  of 
their  inimitable  flight  —  Grecian  simplicities  of  motion, 
amidst  a  labyrinth in>3  infinity  of  curves  that  would 
baffle  the  geometry  of  Apollonius  —  seek  the  water  at 
last,  as  if  with  some  settled  purpose  (you  imagine)  of 
reposing.  Ah,  how  little  have  you  understood  ths 

*  In  this  place  I  derive  my  meling  partly  from  a  lovely  sketch 
*f  the  appearance,  in  verse,  by  Mr.  Wordsworth;  partly  frjm  mt 
urn  experience  of  the  case  ;  and,  nut  having  the  poems  beie 
fciww  not  how  to  proportion  my  acknowledgments 

14 


§10 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


Dmni/ote.uce  of  that  life  which  they  inherit !  They 
want  no  rest:  they  laugh  at  resting;  all  is  “  make 
believe,”  as  when  an  infant  hides  its  laughing  face 
behind  its  mother’s  shawl.  For  a  moment  it  is  still. 
Is  it  meaning  to  rest  ?  Will  its  impatient  heaic  eaefurs 
to  lurk  there  for  long  ?  Ask,  rather,  if  a  cataract  will 
stop  from  fatigue.  Will  a  sunbeam  sleep  on  its  travel?  ? 
or  the  Atlantic  rest  from  its  labors  ?  As  little  can  the 
infant,  as  little  can  the  water-fowl  of  the  lakes,  suspend 
their  play,  except  as  a  variety  of  play,  or  rest  unles? 
when  nature  compels  them.  Suddenly  starts  off  the 
infant,  suddenly  ascend  the  birds,  to  new  evolutions 
as  incalculable  as  the  caprices  of  a  kaleidoscope ;  and 
the  glory  of  their  motions,  from  the  mixed  immortalities 
of  beauty  and  inexhaustible  variety,  becomes  at  least 
pathetic  to  survey.  So  also,  and  with  such  life  of 
variation,  do  the  primary  convulsions  of  nature  —  such, 
perhaps,  as  only  primary *  formations  in  the  human 
system  can  experience  —  come  round  again  and  again  by 
reverberating  shocks. 

o 


*  “And  so,  then,”  the  cynic  objects,  “you  rank  your  own  mind 
(and  you  tell  us  so  frankly)  amongst  the  primary  formations'?” 
As  I  love  to  annoy  him,  it  would  give  me  pleasure  to  reply  — 
“Perhaps  I  do.”  But  as  I  never  answer  more  questions  than  are 
necessary,  I  confine  myself  to  saying,  that  this  is  not  a  necessary 
construction  of  the  words.  Some  minds  stand  nearer  to  the 
type  of  the  original  nature  in  man,  are  tr’’pr  than  others  tc  the 
great  m?gnet  in  our  dark  planet.  Minds  that  are  impassioned 
an  a  more  colossal  scale  than  ordinary,  deeper  in  their  vibrations 
and  more  extensive  in  the  scale  of  their  vibrations,  whether 
tn  other  Darts  of  their  intellectual  system,  they  had  or  had  no 
&  corresponding  compass,  will  tremble  to  greater  depths  from 
fearful  convulsion,  and  will  come  round  by  a  onger  cur  re  & 
^adulations 


OP  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


211 


The  new  intercourse  with  my  guardian,  and  the 
changes  of  scene  which  naturally  it  led  to,  were  of 
use  in  weaning  my  mind  from  the  mere  disease  which 
threatened  it  in  case  I  had  been  left  any  longer  to  my 
total  solitude.  But  out  of  these  changes  grew  an 
incident  which  restored  my  grief,  though  in  a  more 
troubled  shape,  and  now  for  the  first  time  associated 
with  something  like  remorse  and  deadly  anxiety.  I 
can  safely  say  that  this  was  my  earliest  trespass,  and 
perhaps  a  venial  one,  all  things  considered.  Nobody 
ever  discovered  it;  and  but  for  my  own  frankness  it 
would  not  be  known  to  this  day.  But  that  I  could  not 
know ;  and  for  years,  —  that  is,  from  seven  or  earlier  up 
to  ten,  —  such  was  my  simplicity,  that  I  lived  in  constant 
terror.  This,  though  it  revived  my  grief,  did  me 
probably  great  service  ;  because  it  wTas  no  longer  a  state 
of  languishing  desire  tending  to  torpor,  but  of  feverish, 
irritation  and  gnawing  care,  that  kept  alive  the  activity 
of  my  understanding.  The  case  was  this  :  —  It  hap¬ 
pened  that  I  had  now,  and  commencing  with  my  first 
introduction  to  Latin  studies,  a  large  weekly  allowance 
of  •  pocket-money,  —  too  large  for  my  age,  but  safely 
intrusted  to  myself,  who  never  spent  or  desired  to 
spend  one  fraction  of  it  upon  anything  but  books.  But 
all  proved  too  little  for  my  colossal  schemes.  Had  the 
Vatican,  the  Bodleian,  and  the  Bibliotheque  du  Roi , 
been  all  emptied  into  one  collection  for  my  private 
gratification,  little  progress  would  have  been  made 
towards  content  in  this  particular  craving.  Very  l'ocej 
*  had  run  ahead  of  my  allowance,  and  was  about 
Jiree  guineas  deep  in  debt.  There  I  paused ;  for  deep 
anxiety  now  began  to  oppress  me  as  to  the  course  ia 


112 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


which  this  mysterious  (and  indeed  guilty)  current  of 
debt  would  finally  flow.  For  the  present  it  was  frozen 
up ;  but  I  had  some  reason  for  thinking  that  Christm&j 
thawed  all  debts  whatsoever,  and  set  them  m  motion 
towards  innumerable  pockets.  Now  my  debt  would  be 
thawed  with  all  the  rest ;  and  in  what  direction  would 
*t  How  ?  There  was  no  river  that  would  carry  it  off  to 
sea ;  to  somebody’s  pocket  it  would  beyond  a  doub$ 
make  its  way ;  and  who  was  that  somebody  ?  This 
question  haunted  me  forever.  Christmas  had  come, 
Christmas  had  gone,  and  I  heard  nothing  of  the  three 
guineas.  But  I  was  not  easier  for  that.  Far  rather  I 
would  have  heard  of  it;  for  this  indefinite  approach  of 
a  loitering  catastrophe  gnawed  and  fretted  my  feelings. 
No  Grecian  audience  ever  waited  with  more  shudder 
ing  horror  for  the  anagnorisis^  of  the  CEdipus,  than  1 
for  the  explosion  of  my  debt.  Had  I  been  less  igno¬ 
rant,  I  should  have  proposed  to  mortgage  my  weekly 
allowance  for  the  debt,  or  to  form  a  sinking  fund  for 
redeeming  it ;  for  the  weekly  sum  was  nearly  five  per 
cent,  on  the  entire  debt.  But  I  had  a  mysterious  awe 
of  ever  alluding  to  it.  This  arose  from  my  want,  cl 
some  confidential  friend ;  whilst  my  grief  pointed  con¬ 
tinually  to  the  remembrance,  that  so  it  had  not  always 
been.  But  was  not  the  bookseller  to  blame  in  suffer¬ 
ing  a  child  scarcely  seven  years  old  to  contract  such 
a  debt  Not  in  the  least.  He  was  both  a  rich  man, 


*  That  is  (as  on  account  of  English  readers  is  added),  the  reco£ 
fcition  of  his  true  identity,  which,  in  one  moment,  and  by  a  horrk' 
iash  of  revelation,  connects  him  with  acts  incestuous  murderous 
parricidal  in  the  past,  and  with  a  mysterious  fatality  of  woe  luik 
mg  tu  the  future. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


213 


*rho  could  not  possibly  care  for  my  trifling  custom, 
and  notoriously  an  honorable  man.  Indeed,  the  money 
which  I  myself  spent  every  week  in  books  would 
reasonably  have  caused  him  to  presume  that  so  small 
a  sum  as  three  guineas  might  well  be  authorized  by  my 
family.  He  stood,  however,  on  plainer  ground;  for 
my  guardian,  who  was  very  indolent  (as  people  chose 
to  call  it),  —  that  is,  like  his  little  melancholy  ward 
spent  all  his  time  in  reading,  —  often  enough  would  send 
me  to  the  bookseller’s  with  a  written  order  for  books 
This  was  to  prevent  my  forgetting.  But  when  he 
found  that  such  a  thing  as  “  forgetting,”  in  the  case  of 
a  book,  was  wholly  out  of  the  question  for  me,  the 
trouble  of  writing  was  dismissed.  And  thus  I  had 
become  factor-general,  on  the  part  of  my  guardian, 
both  for  his  books,  and  for  such  as  were  wanted  on  my 
own  account,  in  the  natural  course  of  my  education. 
My  private  “little  account”  had  therefore  in  fact  flowed 
homewards  at  Christmas,  not  (as  I  anticipated)  in  the 
shape  of  an  independent  current,  but  as  a  little  tributary 
rill,  that  was  lost  in  the  waters  of  some  more  import¬ 
ant  river.  This  I  now  know,  but  could  not  then  have 
known  with  any  certainty.  So  far,  however,  the  aftai? 
vmuld  gradually  have  sunk  out  of  my  anxieties,  as  time 
wore  'n.  But  there  was  another  item  in  the  case, 
which,  from  the  excess  of  my  ignorance,  preyed  upon 
my  spirits  far  more  keenly;  and  this,  keeping  itself 
alive,  kept  also  the  other  incident  alive.  With  respect 
to  the  debt,  I  was  not  so  ignorant  as  to  think  it  of  much 
danger  by  the  mere  amount,  —  my  own  allowance  fur* 
wished  a  scale  for  preventing  that  mistake ;  —  it  was  the 
principle,  —  the  having  presumed  to  contract  debts  or. 


g]4  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

my  own  account,  —  that  I  feared  to  have  exposed.  Bui 
this  other  case  was  a  ground  for  anxiety,  even  as 
regarded  the  amount ;  not  really,  but  under  the  jesting 
representation  made  to  me,  which  I  (as  ever  before  and 
after)  swallowed  in  perfect  faith.  Amongst  the  bocks 
which  I  had  bought,  all  English,  was  a  history  of 
Great  Britain,  commencing,  of  course,  with  Brutus  and 
a  thousand  years  of  impossibilities ;  these  fables  being 
generously  thrown  in  as  a  little  gratuitous  extra  to  the 
mass  of  truths  which  were  to  follow.  This  was  to  be 
completed  in  sixty  or  eighty  parts,  1  believe.  But 
there  was  another  work  left  more  indefinite  as  to  its 
ultimate  extent,  and  which,  from  its  nature,  seemed  to 
imply  a  far  higher  range.  It  was  a  general  history  of 
navigation,  supported  by  a  vast  body  of  voyages.  Now, 
when  I  considered  with  myself  what  a  huge  thing  the 
sea  was,  and  that  so  many  thousands  of  captains,  com¬ 
modores,  admirals,  were  eternally  running  up  and  down 
it,  and  scoring  lines  upon  its  face  so  rankly,  that  in 
some  of  the  main  “streets”  and  “squares”  (as  one 
night  call  them),  their  tracts  would  blend  into  one 
undistinguishable  blot,  I  began  to  fear  that  such  a 
work  tended  to  infinity.  What  was  little  England  to 
the  universal  sea  ?  And  yet  that  went  perhaps  to 
fourscore  parts.  Not  enduring  the  uncertainty  that  now 
besieged  my  tranquillity,  I  resolved  to  know  the  worst; 
md,  on  a  day  ever  memorable  to  me,  I  went  down  to 
the  bookseller’s.  He  was  a  mild,  elderly  man,  and  to 
my -elf  had  always  shown  a  kind,  indulgent  manner 
Partly,  perhaps,  he  had  been  struck  by  my  extreme 
gravity  ;  and  partly,  during  the  many  conversations 
had  with  him,  on  occasion  cf  my  guardian’s  orders  fo« 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


215 


nooks,  with  my  laughable  simplicity.  But  there  was 
another  reason  which  had  early  won  for  me  his  paferna' 
regard.  For  the  first  three  or  four  months  I  had  found 
Latin  something  of  a  drudgery ;  and  the  incident  which 
forever  knocked  away  the  “  shores,”  at  that  time  pre¬ 
venting  my  launch  upon  the  general  bosom  of  Latin 
literature,  was  this:  —  One  day,  the  bookseller  took 
down  a  Beza’s  Latin  Testament ;  and,  opening  it, 
asked  me  to  translate  for  him  the  chapter  which  he 
pointed  to.  I  was  struck  by  perceiving  that  it  was 
the  great  chapter  of  St.  Paul  on  the  grave  and  resur¬ 
rection.  I  had  never  seen  a  Latin  version ;  yet,  from 
the  simplicity  of  the  scriptural  style  in  any  translation 
''though  Beza’s  is  far  from  good),  I  could  not  well  have 
failed  in  construing.  But,  as  it  happened  to  be  this  par¬ 
ticular  chapter,  which  in  English  I  had  read  again  and 
again  with  so  passionate  a  sense  of  its  grandeur,  I  read 
it  off  with  a  fluency  and  effect  like  some  great  opera 
singer  uttering  a  rapturous  bravura .  My  kind  old 
friend  expressed  himself  gratified,  making  me  a  present 
of  the  book  as  a  mark  of  his  approbation.  And  it  is 
remarkable,  that  from  this  moment,  when  the  deep 
memory  of  the  English  words  had  forced  me  into 
seeing  the  precise  correspondence  of  the  two  concurrent 
streams,  —  Latin  and  English,  —  never  again  did  any 
difficulty  arise  to  check  the  velocity  of  my  progress  in 
this  particular  language.  At  less  than  eleven  years 
of  age,  when  as  yet  I  was  a  very  indifferent  Grecian, 
l  had  become  a  brilliant  master  of  Latinity,  as  my 
tlcaics  and  choriambics  remain  to  testify ;  and  the 
who  le  occasion  of  a  change  so  memorable  to  a  boy, 
am.?  this  casual  summons  to  translate  a  composition 


216 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


with  which  my  heart  was  filled.  Ever  after  this  ftt 
showed  me  a  caressing  kindness,  and  so  condescend 
ingly,  that,  generally,  he  would  leave  any  people,  for  a 
moment,  with  whom  he  was  engaged,  to  come  and  speak 
tc  me.  On  this  fatal  day,  however,  —  for  such  it  proved 
to  me,  — he  could  not  do  this.  He  saw  me,  indeed,  ana 
nodded,  but  could  not  leave  a  party  of  elderly  strangers. 
This  accident  threw  me  unavoidably  upon  one  of  his 
young  people.  Now,  this  was  a  market  day,  and  there 
was  a  press  of  country  people  present,  whom  I  did  no 
wish  to  hear  my  question.  Never  did  a  human  crea* 
iure,  with  his  heart  palpitating  at  Delphi  for  the  solution 
of  some  killing  mystery,  stand  before  the  priestess  of 
the  oracle,  with  lips  that  moved  more  sadly  than  mine, 
when  now  advancing  to  a  smiling  young  man  at  a  desk. 
His  answer  was  to  decide,  though  I  could  not  exactly 
know  that,  whether,  for  the  mxt  two  years,  I  was  to 
have  an  hour  of  peace.  He  was  a  handsome,  good- 
natured  young  man,  but  full  of  fun  and  frolic ;  and  1 
dare  say  was  amused  with  what  must  have  seemed  to 
him  the  absurd  anxiety  of  my  features.  I  described 
ihe  work  to  him,  and  he  understood  me  at  once.  How 
many  volumes  did  he  think  it  would  extend  to J 
There  was  a  whimsical  expression,  perhaps,  of  droll 
cry  about  his  eyes,  but  which,  unhappily,  under  my 
preconceptions,  I  translated  into  scorn,  as  he  replied 
'‘How  many  volumes?  0!  really,  I  can’t  say;  may- 
>e  a  matter  of  15,000,  be  the  same  more  or  less.’ 
“More?”  I  said,  in  horror,  altogether  neglecting  th« 
contingency  of  “less.”  “Why,”  he  said,  “we  car 
settle  these  things  to  a  nicety.  But,  considering  th« 
subject”  [ay,  MV  was  the  very  thing  which  I  my  sell 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


211 


considered],  “  I  should  say  there  might  be  some  trifle 
Dver,  as  suppose  400  or  500  volumes,  be  the  same 
more  or  less.”  What,  then,  —  here  there  might  be 
mpplements  to  supplements,  —  the  work  might  posi¬ 
tively  never  end  !  On  one  pretence  or  another,  if  an 
author  or  publisher  might  add  500  volumes,  he  might 
add  another  round  15,000.  Indeed,  it  strikes  one  even 
now,  that  by  the  time  all  the  one-legged  commodores 
and  yellow  admirals  of  that  generation  had  exhausted 
their  long  yarns,  another  generation  would  have  grown 
another  crop  of  the  same  gallant  spinners.  I  asked  no 
more,  but  slunk  out  of  the  shop,  and  never  again 
entered  it  with  cheerfulness,  or  propounded  any  frank 
questions,  as  heretofore.  For  I  was  now  seriously 
afraid  of  pointing  attention  to  myself  as  one  that,  by 
having  purchased  some  numbers,  and  obtained  others 
on  credit,  had  silently  contracted  an  engagement  to 
take  all  the  rest,  though  they  should  stretch  to  the 
crack  of  doom.  Certainly  I  had  never  heard  of  a  work 
that  extended  to  15,000  volumes ;  but  still  there  was  no 
natural  impossibility  that  it  should;  and,  if  in  any  case, 
in  none  so  reasonably  as  one  upon  the  inexhaustible 
sea.  Besides,  any  slight  mistake  as  to  the  letter  of 
the  number  could  not  affect  the  horror  of  the  final 
prospect.  I  saw  by  the  imprint,  and  I  heard,  that  this 
«rork  emanated  from  London,  a  vast  centre  of  mystery 
fcs  me,  and  the  more  so,  as  a  thing  unseen  at  any  time 
b  *  my  eyes,  and  nearly  two  hundred  miles  distant  I 
Lit  the  fatal  truth,  that  here  was  a  ghostly  cobweb  radi¬ 
ating  into  all  the  provinces  from  the  mighty  metropolis 
'  secretly  had  trodden  upon  the  :>uter  circumference,  — 
lad  damaged  or  deranged  the  fine  threads  or  linksK  — 

o  o 


SIS  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

concealment  or  reparatior  there  could  be  none.  Slowly 
perhaps,  but  surely,  the  vibration  would  travel  back 
to  London.  The  ancient  spider  that  sat  there  at  the 
centre  would  rush  along  the  net-work  through  all  longi* 
ludes  an  l  latitudes,  until  he  found  the  responsible 
caitiff,  author  of  so  much  mischief.  Even  with  les^ 
ignorance  than  mine,  there  was  something  to  appal  a 
child’s  imagination  in  the  vast  systematic  machinery 
by  which  any  elaborate  work  could  disperse  itself,  could 
levy  money,  could  put  questions  and  get  answers, — 
all  in  profound  silence,  nay,  even  in  darkness,  search¬ 
ing  every  nook  of  every  town  and  of  every  hamlet  in 
no  populous  a  kingdom.  I  had  some  dim  terrors,  also, 
connected  with  the  Stationers’  Company.  I  had  often 
observed  them  in  popular  works  threatening  unknown 
men  with  unknown  chastisements,  for  offences  equally 
unknown;  nay,  to  myself,  absolutely  inconceivable, 
Could  I  be  the  mysterious  criminal  so  long  pointed  out 
as  it  were,  in  prophecy  ?  I  figured  the  stationers,  doubt¬ 
less  all  powerful  men,  pulling  at  one  rope,  and  my 
unhappy  self  hanging  at  the  other  end.  But  an  image, 
which  seems  now  even  more  ludicrous  than  the  rest,  at 
that  time,  was  the  one  most  connected  with  the  revival 
of  my  grief.  It  occurred  to  my  subtlety,  that  the  Sta¬ 
tioners’  Company,  or  any  other  company,  could  not 
possibly  demand  the  money  until  they  had  delivered  the 
volumes.  And,  as  no  man  could  say  that  I  had  evei 
^sitively  refused  to  receive  them,  they  would  have  nc 
pretence  for  not  accomplishing  this  delivery  in  a  cm 
manner,  Unless  I  should  turn  out  to  be  no  customer 
«  all  at  present  it  was  clear  that  I  had  a  right  to  b« 
considered  a  most  excellent  customer;  one,  in  fact 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER, 


213 


fcrho  had  given  an  order  for  fifteen  thousand  vunniea. 
Then  rose  up  before  me  this  great  opera-house 
‘‘scena”  of  the  delivery.  There  would  be  a  ring  at 
the  front  door.  A  wagoner  in  the  front,  with  a  bland 
voice,  would  ask  for  “a  young  gentleman  «vho  had 
given  an  order  to  their  house.’  Looking  out,  I  shomu 
perceive  a  procession  of  carts  and  wagons,  all  advano 
ing  in  measured  movements  ;  each  in  turn  would  pre* 
sent  its  rear,  deliver  its  cargo  of  volumes,  by  shooting 
them,  like  a  load  of  coals,  on  the  lawn,  and  wheel  off  to 
the  rear,  by  way  of  clearing  the  road  for  its  successors. 
Then  the  impossibility  of  even  asking  the  servants  to 
cover  with  sheets,  or  counterpanes,  or  table-cloths,  such 
a  mountainous,  such  a  “  star-y-pointing  ”  record  of  my 
past  offences,  lying  in  so  conspicuous  a  situation!  Men 
would  not  know  my  guilt  merely,  they  would  see  it. 
But  the  reason  why  this  form  of  the  consequences,  so 
much  more  than  any  other,  stuck  by  my  imagination 

was,  that  it  connected  itself-  with  one  of  the  Arabian 

Nights  which  had  particularly  interested  myself  and 
my  sister.  It  was  that  tale,  where  a  young  porter, 
having  his  ropes  about  his  person,  had  stumbled  into 
the  special  “  preserve  ”  of  some  old  magician.  He 

finds  a  beautiful  lady  imprisoned,  to  whom  (and  net 
without  prospects  of  success)  he  recommends  himself 
as  a  suitor  more  in  harmony  with  her  own  years  than 
&  withered  magician.  A,  this  crisis,  the  magician 

"eturns.  The  young  man  bolts,  and  for  that  day 
iuccessfully ;  but  unluck.ly  he  leaves  his  rones  behind, 
Next  morning  he  hears  tne  magician,  too  honest  by 
talf,  inquiring  at  the  front  door,  with  muen  expression 
of  ccr.doience,  for  the  unfortunate  young  man  who  had 


£20 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


ost  his  ropes  in  his  own  zenana.  Upon  this  story 
.  used  to  amuse  my  sister  by  ventriloquizing1  to  the 
magician,  from  the  lips  of  the  trembling  young  man,— 
“  O,  Mr.  Magician,  these  ropes  cannot  be  mine  !  They 
are  far  too  good ;  and  one  would  n’t  like,  you  know,  tc 
rob  some  other  poor  young  man.  If  you  please,  Mr 
Magician,  I  never  had  money  enough  to  buy  so  beauti¬ 
ful  a  set  of  ropes.”  But  argument  is  thrown  away 
upon  a  magician,  and  off  he  sets  on  his  travels  with  the 
young  porter,  not  forgetting  to  take  the  ropes  along  with 
him. 

Here  now  was  the  case,  that  had  once  seemed  so 
impresr.ive  to  me  in  a  mere  fiction  from  a  far  distant 
age  and  land,  literally  reproduced  in  myself.  For, 
what  did  it  matter  whether  a  magician  dunned  one 
with  old  ropes  for  his  engine  of  torture,  or  Stationers’ 
Hall  with  fifteen  thousand  volumes  (in  the  rear  of  which 
there  might  also  be  ropes)  ?  Should  I  have  ventrilo¬ 
quized,  would  my  sister  have  laughed,  had  either  of  us 
but  guessed  the  possibility  that  I  myself,  and  within  one 
twelve  months,  and,  alas !  standing  alone  in  the  world 
as  regarded  confidential  counsel,  should  repeat  within 
my  own  inner  experience  the  shadowy  panic  of  the 
young  Bagdat  intruder  upon  the  privacy  of  magicians  ? 
ft  appeared,  then,  that  I  had  been  reading  a  legend 
concerning  myself  in  the  Arabian  Nights.  I  had  been 
contemplated  hi  types  a  thousand  yeais  before,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tigris.  It  was  horror  and  grief  that 
"Tcmotel  that  thought. 

3,  neavens !  that  the  misery  of  a  child  should  by 
^©ssibility  become  the  laughter  of  adults !  —  that  even 
",  the  sufferer,  should  be  capable  of  amusing  myself 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATElt. 


221 


as  if  it  had  been  a  jest,  with  what  for  three  years  had 
constituted  the  secret  affliction  of  my  life,  and  its  eter¬ 
nal  trepidation  —  like  the  ticking  of  a  death-watch  to 
patients  lying  awake  in  the  plague !  I  durst  ask  no 
counsel ;  there  was  no  one  to  ask.  Possibly  my  sistei 
could  have  given  me  none  in  a  case  which  neither  of 
us  should  have  understood,  and  wTherc  to  seek  for  inform- 
Ettion  from  others  would  have  been  at  once  to  betray 
the  whole  reason  for  seeking  it.  But,  if  no  advice,  she 
would  have  given  me  her  pity,  and  the  expression  of 
her  endless  love ;  and,  with  the  relief  of  sympathy, 
that  heals  for  a  season  all  distresses,  she  would  have 
given  me  that  exquisite  luxury  —  the  knowledge  that, 
having  parted  with  my  secret,  yet  also  I  had  not  parted 
with  it,  since  it  was  in  the  power  only  of  one  that  could 
much  less  betray  me  than  I  could  betray  myself.  At 
this  time,  —  that  is,  about  the  year  when  I  suffered 
most,  —  I  was  reading  Caesar.  0,  laurelled  scholar 
sunbright  intellect,  “  foremost  man  of  all  this  world,” 
how  often  did  I  make  out  of  thy  immortal  volume  a  pil¬ 
low  to  support  my  wearied  brow,  as  at  evening,  on  my 
homeward  road,  I  used  to  turn  into  some  silent  field, 
where  I  might  give  way  unobserved  to  the  reveries 
which  besieged  me !  I  wondered,  and  found  no  end 
of  wondering,  at  the  revolution  that  one  short  year  had 
made  in  my  happiness.  I  wondered  that  such  billows 
tould  overtake  me.  At  the  beginning  of  that  year,  how 
radiantly  happy !  At  the  end,  how  insupportably  alone ' 

“  Into  what  depth  thou  seest, 

From  whal  heigh',  fallen.” 

Forever  I  searched  the  abysses  with  some  wandering 


222 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


thoughts  unintelligible  to  myself.  Forevei  I  dallied 
with  some  obscure  notion,  how  my  sister’s  love  might  be 
made  in  some  dim  way  available  for  deliverirg  me  from 
misery ;  or  else  how  the  misery  I  had  suffered  and  was 
suffering  might  be  made,  in  some  way  equally  dim,  the 
ransom  for  winning  back  her  love. 

JL  «AA.  JL  ^  AL 

W  *7v*  W  VV  W  Tv  W  7T 

Here  pause,  reader !  Imagine  yourself  seated  in 
gome  cloud-scaling  swing,  oscillating  under  the  impulse 
of  lunatic  hands  ;  for  the  strength  of  lunacy  may  belong 
to  human  dreams,  the  fearful  caprice  of  lunacy,  and  the 
malice  of  lunacy,  whilst  the  victim  of  those  dreams 
may  be  all  the  more  certainly  removed  from  lunacy ; 
even  as  a  bridge  gathers  cohesion  and  strength  from 
the  increasing  resistance  into  which  it  is  forced  by 
increasing  pressure.  Seated  in  such  a  swing,  fast  as 
you  reach  the  lowest  point  of  depression,  may  you 
rely  on  racing  up  to  a  starry  altitude  of  corresponding 
iscent.  Ups  and  downs  you  will  see,  heights  and 
depths,  in  our  fiery  course  together,  such  as  will  some¬ 
times  tempt  you  to  look  shyly  and  suspiciously  at  me, 
your  guide,  and  the  ruler  of  the  oscillations.  Here,  at 
the  point  where  I  have  called  a  halt,  the  reader  has 
reached  the  lowest  depths  in  my  nursery  afflictions. 
From  that  point,  according  to  the  principles  of  art 
which  govern  the  movement  of  these  Confessions,  1 
had  meant  to  launch  him  upwards  through  the  whole 
arch  of  ascending  visions  which  seemed  requisite  to 
balance  the  sweep  downwards,  so  recently  described  in 
his  course.  But  accidents  of  the  press  have  made  it 
impossible  to  accomplish  this  purpose  in  the  preieo 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


223 


fftouth  i  journal.  There  is  reason  to  regret  that  the 
advantages  of  position,  which  were  essential  to  the  full 
effect  of  passages  planned  for  the  equipoise  and  mutual 
resistance,  have  thus  oeen  lost.  Meantime,  upon  the 
principle  of  the  mariner,  who  rigs  a  jury- mast  in  default 
of  his  regular  spars,  I  find  my  resource  in  a  sort  of 
“jury”  peroration,  not  sufficient  in  the  way  of  a  balance 
by  its  proportions ,  but  sufficient  to  indicate  the  pjmity 
of  the  balance  which  I  had  contemplated.  He  who  has 
really  read  the  preceding  parts  of  these  present  Confes¬ 
sions  will  be  aware  that  a  stricter  scrutiny  of  the  past, 
such  as  was  natural  after  the  whole  economy  of  the 
dreaming  faculty  had  been  convulsed  beyond  all  prece¬ 
dents  on  record,  led  me  to  the  conviction  that  not  one 
agency,  but  two  agencies,  had  cooperated  to  the  tremen¬ 
dous  result.  The  nursery  experience  had  been  the  ally 
and  the  natural  coefficient  of  the  opium.  For  that 
reason  it  was  that  the  nursery  experience  has  been  nar¬ 
rated.  Logically  it  bears  the  very  same  relation  to  the 
convulsions  of  the  dreaming  faculty  as  the  opium.  The 
idealizing  tendency  existed  in  the  dream-theatre  of  my 
childhood;  but  the  preternatural  strength  of  its  action 
and  coloring  was  first  developed  after  the  confluence 
of  the  two  causes.  The  reader  must  suppose  me  at 
Oxford  ;  twelve  years  and  a  half  are  gone  by  ;  I  am  in 
the  glory  of  youthful  happiness  :  but  I  have  now  first 
tampered  with  opium ;  and  now  first  the  agitations  of 
.Ty  childhood  reopened  in  strength,  now  first  they  swept 
in  upon  the  brain  with  power,  and  the  grandeur  of  recov¬ 
ered  life,  under  the  separate  and  the  concurring  inspira¬ 
tions  of  opium. 

Once  again,  after  twelve  years’  interval;  the  nursery 


224  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESS  JONS 

of  my  childhood  expanded  before  me  :  my  sister  mi 
moaning  in  bed;  I  was  beginning  to  be  restless  with 
fears  not  mtelligible  to  myself.  Once  again  the  nurse, 
but  now  dilated  to  colossal  proportions,  stood  as  upon 
some  Grecian  stage  with  her  uplifted  hand,  and  like 
the  superb  Medea  standing  alone  with  her  chi  .Lien 
in  the  nursery  at  Corinth,^  smote  me  senseless  to  the 
ground.  Again  I  was  in  the  chamber  with  my  sister's 
corpse,  again  the  pomps  of  life  rose  up  in  silence,  the 
glory  of  summer,  the  frost  of  death.  Dream  formed 
itself  mysteriously  within  dream;  within  these  Oxford 
dreams  remoulded  itself  continually  the  trance  in  my 
sister’s  chamber,  —  the  blue  heavens,  the  everlasting 
vault,  the  soaring  billows,  the  throne  steeped  in  the 
thought  (but  not  the  sight)  of  “  Him  that  sate  there 
on;”  the  flight,  the  pursuit,  the  irrecoverable  steps  of 
my  return  to  earth.  Once  more  the  funeral  procession 
gathered ;  the  priest  in  his  white  surplice  stood  wait 
ing  with  a  book  in  his  hand  by  the  side  of  an  oper 
grave,  the  sacristan  with  his  shovel ;  the  coffin  sank 
the  dust  to  dust  descended.  Again  I  was  in  the  church 
on  a  heavenly  Sunday  morning.  The  golden  sunligh 
of  God  slept  amongst  the  heads  of  his  apostles,  his 
martyrs,  his  saints ;  the  fragment  from  the  litany,  the 
fragment  from  the  clouds,  awoke  again  the  lawny 
beds  that  went  up  to  scale  the  heavens  —  awoke  again 
the  shadowy  arms  that  moved  downward  to  meet 
them.  Once  again  arose  the  swell  of  the  anthem 
the  ourst  of  the  Hallelujah  chorus,  the  storm,  the 
trampling  movement  of  the  choral  passion,  the  agita* 


*  Euripides. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  22!t 

fcm  ot  my  own  trembling  sympathy,  the  tumuli 
of  the  choir,  the  wrath  of  the  organ.  Once  more  .1 
that  wallowed,  became  he  that  rose  up  to  the  clouds. 
And  now  in  Oxford  ail  was  bound  up  into  unity ;  the 
first  state  and  the  last  were  melted  into  each  other  as  in 
wme  sunny  glorifying  haze.  For  high  above  my  own 
station  hovered  a  gleaming  host  of  heavenly  beings 
surrounding  the  pillows  of  the  dying  children.  AnJ 
such  beings  sympathize  equally  with  sorrow  that  grovels 
and  with  sorrow  that  soars.  Such  beings  pity  alike  the 
children  that  are  languishing  in  death,  and  the  children 
that  live  only  to  languish  in  tears. 


THE  PALIMPSEST. 

You  know  perhaps,  masculine  reader,  better  than  1 
can  tell  you,  what  is  a  Palimpsest.  Possibly,  you  have 
one  in  your  own  library.  But  yet,  for  the  sake  of  others 
who  may  not  know,  or  may  have  forgotten,  suffer  me 
to  explain  it  here,  lest  any  female  reader,  who  honors 
these  papers  with  her  notice,  should  tax  me  with 
explaining  it  once  too  seldom  ;  which  would  be  worse 
to  bear  than  a  simultaneous  complaint  from  twelve 
oroud  men,  that  I  had  explained  it  three  times  too  often. 
You  therefore,  fair  reader,  understand,  that  for  your 
accommodation  exclusively,  1  explain  the  meaning  of 
this  word.  It  is  Greek ;  and  our  sex  enjoys  the  office 
md  privilege  of  standing  cout.sei  to  yours,  in  all  ques 
ion?  of  Greek  We  are,  under  favor,  perpetual  and 


£28  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

hereditary  dragomans  to  you.  So  that  if,  by  accident 
you  know  the  meaning  of  a  Greek  word,  yet  by  cou? 
tesy  to  us,  your  counsel  learned  in  that  matter,  you  wil 
always  seem  not  to  know  it. 

A  palimpsest,  then,  is  a  membrane  or  roll  cleansed  of 
its  manuscript  by  reiterated  successions. 

What  was  the  reason  that  the  Greeks  and  the 
Romans  had  not  the  advantage  of  printed  books  ?  The 
answer  will  be,  from  ninety-nine  persons  in  a  hunlred, 
—  Because  the  mystery  of  printing  was  not  then  dis¬ 
covered.  But  this  is  altogether  a  mistake.  The  secret 
of  printing  must  have  been  discovered  many  thousands 
of  times  before  it  was  used,  or  could  be  used.  The 
inventive  powers  of  man  are  divine ;  and  also  his  stu¬ 
pidity  is  divine,  as  Cowper  so  playfully  illustrates  in  the 
slow  development  of  the  sofa  through  successive  genera¬ 
tions  of  immortal  dulness.  It  took  centuries  of  block¬ 
heads  to  raise  a  joint  stool  into  a  chair ;  and  it  required 
something  like  a  miracle  of  genius,  in  the  estimate  of 
elder  generations,  to  reveal  the  possibility  of  lengthening 
a  chair  into  a  chaise-longue ,  or  a  sofa.  Yes,  these  were 
inventions  that  cost  mighty  throes  of  intellectual  power. 
But  still,  as  respects  printing,  and  admirable  as  is  the 
stupidity  of  man,  it  was  really  not  quite  equal  to  the 
task  of  evading  an  object  which  stared  him  in  the  face 
with  so  broad  a  gaze.  It  did  not  require  an  Athenian 
.ntellect  to  read  the  main  secret  of  printing  in  many 
icores  of  processes  which  the  ordinary  uses  of  life 
were  daily  repeating.  To  say  nothing  of  analogous 
rtifices  amongst  various  mechanic  artisans,  all  that  if 
t«sential  in  printing  must  have  been  known  to  every 
nation  that  struck  coins  and  medals.  Not  therefore 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


221 


iny  .vant  of  a  .printing  art,  —  that  is  of  an  art  for 
multiplying  impressions,  —  but  the  want  of  a  cheap 
material  for  receiving  such  impressions,  was  the  obstacle 
to  an  introduction  of  printed  books,  even  as  early  as 
Pisistratus.  The  ancients  did  apply  printing  to  records 
of  silver  and  gold ;  to  marble,  and  many  other  sub¬ 
stances  cheaper  than  gold  and  silver,  they  did  not ,  since 
each  monument  required  a  separate  effort  of  inscrip* 
tion.  Simply  this  defect  it  was  of  a  cheap  material  for 
receiving  impresses,  which  froze  in  its  very  fountains 
the  early  resources  of  printing. 

Some  twenty  years  ago,  this  view  of  the  case  was 
luminously  expounded  by  Dr.  Whately,  the  present 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  with  the  merit,  I  believe,  of 
having  first  suggested  it.  Since  then,  this  theory  has 
received  indirect  confirmation.  Now,  out  of  that  origi¬ 
nal  scarcity  affecting  all  materials  proper  for  durable 
books,  which  continued  up  to  times  comparatively 
modern,  grew  the  opening  for  palimpsests.  Natur¬ 
ally,  when  once  a  roll  of  parchment  or  of  vellum  had 
done  its  office,  by  propagating  through  a  series  of  gen¬ 
erations  what  once  had  possessed  an  interest  for  them , 
but  which,  under  changes  of  opinion  or  of  taste,  had 
faded  to  their  feelings  or  had  become  obsolete  for  their 
undertakings,  the  whole  membrana  or  vellum  skin,  the 
two-fold  product  of  human  skill,  costly  material,  and 
costly  freight  of  thought,  which,  it  carried,  drooped  in 
value  concurrently  —  supposing  that  each  were  inalien¬ 
ably  associated  to  the  other.  Once  it  had  been  the 
impress  of  a  human  mind  which  stamped  its  \aiue  upon 
the  vellum ;  the  vellum,  though  costly,  had  contributed 
Bi  t  a  secondary  element  of  value  to  the  total  resu  t 


£28  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

At  length,  however,  this  relation  betveen  the  vehicle 
find  its  freight  has  gradually  been  undermined.  The 
vellum,  from  having  been  the  setting  of  the  jewel,  has 
risen  at  length  to  be  the  jewel  itself;  and  the  burden  of 
thought,  from  having  given  the  chief  value  to  the 
vellum,  has  now  become  the  chief  obstacle  to  its  vaiue; 
nay,  has  totally  extinguished  its  value,  unless  it  can  b© 
dissociated  from  the  connection.  Yet,  if  this  toJinking 
'XL n  be  effected,  then,  fast  as  the  inscription  upon  the 
membrane  is  sinking  into  rubbish,  the  membrane  itself 
is  reviving  in  its  separate  importance ;  and,  from  bearing 
b  ministerial  value,  the  vellum  has  come  at  last  to  absorb 
the  whole  value. 

Hence  the  importance  for  our  ancestors  that  the 
separation  should  be  effected.  Hence  it  arose  in  the 
middle  ages,  as  a  considerable  object  for  chemistry,  to 
discharge  the  writing  from  the  roll,  and  thus  to  make 
it  available  for  a  new  succession  of  thoughts.  The 
soil,  if  cleansed  from  what  once  had  been  hot-house 
plants,  but  now  were  held  to  be  weeds,  would  be  ready 
to  receive  a  fresh  and  more  appropriate  .crop.  In  that 
object  the  monkish  chemist  succeeded;  but  after  a 
fashion  which  seems  almost  incredible,  —  incredible  not 
rs  regards  the  extent  of  their  success,  but  as  regards 
the  delicacy  of  restraints  under  which  it  moved,  —  so 
equally  adjusted  was  their  success  to  the  immediate 
interests  of  that  period,  and  to  the  reversionary  object j 
of  our  own.  They  did  the  thing ;  bu  not  so  radically 

to  prevent  us,  their  posterity,  from  wwdoing  it.  They 
expelled  the  writing  sufficiently  to  leave  a  field  for  the 
new  manuscript,  and  yet  not  sufficiently  to  make  the 
traces  of  the  elder  manuscript  irrecoverable  for  us 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


22$ 


Could  magic,  could  Hermes  Trismegistus,  have  done 
more  ?  What  would  you  think,  fair  reader,  of  a  prob¬ 
lem  such  as  this,  —  to  write  a  book  which  should  be 
sense  for  your  own  generation,  nonsense  for  the  next, 
should  revive  into  sense  for  the  next  after  that,  but 
again  become  nonsense  for  the  fourth ;  and  so  on  by 
alternate  successions,  sinking  into  night  or  blazing  into 
day,  like  the  Sicilian  river  Arethusa,  and  the  English 
river  Mole ;  or  like  the  undulating  motions  of  a  flat¬ 
tened  stone  which  children  cause  to  skim  the  breast  of 
a  river,  now  diving  below  the  water,  now  grazing  its 
surface,  sinking  heavily  into  darkness,  rising  buoyantly 
into  light,  through  a  long  vista  of  alternations  ?  Such 
a  problem,  you  say,  is  impossible.  But  really  it  is  e 
problem  not  harder  apparently  than  —  to  bid  a  genera 
♦ion  kill,  but  so  that  a  subsequent  generation  may  cail 
back  into  life ;  bury,  but  so  that  posterity  may  command 
to  rise  again.  Yet  that  was  what  the  rude  chemistry 
of  past  ages  effected  when  coming  into  combination 
with  the  reaction  from  the  more  refined  chemistry  of  our 
own.  Had  they  been  better  chemists,  had  we  been  worse, 
the  mixed  result,  namely,  that,  dying  for  them,  the 
flower  should  revive  for  us,  could  not  have  been  effected. 
They  did  the  thing  proposed  to  them:  they  did  it  effect¬ 
ually,  for  they  founded  upon  it  all  that  was  wanted : 
and  yet  ineffectually,  since  we  unravelled  their  work, 
effacing  all  above  which  they  had  superscribed;  restor¬ 
ing  all  below  which  they  had  effaced. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  a  parchment  which  contained 
*ome  Grecian  tragedy,  the  Agamemnon  of  JEschylus, 
sr  the  Phoenissae  of  Euripides.  This  had  possessed  a 
ra  ue  almost  inappreciable  in  the  eyes  of  accomplished 


&30  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

Rchclars,  continually  growing  rarer  through  generations 
liut  four  centuries  are  gone  by  since  the  destruclioa 
of  the  Western  Empire.  Christianity,  with  towering 
grandeurs  of  another  class,  has  founded  a  different 
empire ;  and  some  bigoted,  yet  perhaps  holy  monk,  h  is 
washed  away  (as  he  persuades  himself)  the  heathen’s 
tragedy,  replacing  it  with  a  monastic  legend ;  which 
legend  is  disfigured  with  fables  in  its  incidents,  and  yet 
in  a  higher  sense  is  true,  because  interwoven  with 
Christian  morals,  and  with  the  sublimest  of  Christian 
revelations.  Three,  four,  five  centuries  more,  find  man 
still  devout  as  ever ;  but  the  language  has  become 
obsolete,  and  even  for  Christian  devotion  a  new  era  has 
arisen,  throwing  it  into  the  channel  of  crusading  zeal 
or  of  chivalrous  enthusiasm.  The  membrana  is  wanted 
now  fora  knightly  romance  —  for  “my  Cid,”  or  Coeui 
de  Lion;  for  Sir  Tristrem,  or  Lybseus  Disconus.  In 
this  way,  by  means  of  the  imperfect  chemistry  known 
to  the  mediaeval  period,  the  same  roll  has  served  as  a 
conservatory  for  three  separate  generations  of  flowers 
end  fruits,  all  perfectly  different,  and  yet  all  specially 
adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  successive  possessors. 
The  Greek  tragedy,  the  monkish  legend  the  knightly 
'omance,  each  has  ruled  its  own  period.  One  harvest 
lifter  another  has  been  gathered  into  the  garners  of 
man  through  ages  far  apart.  And  the  sa  ne  hydraulic 
machinery  has  distributed,  through  the  same  marble 
fountains,  water,  milk,  or  wine,  according  to  the  habits 
end  training  of  the  generations  that  came  to  quench 
their  thirst. 

Such  were  the  achievements  of  rude  monastic  chem 
Btry  But  the  more  elaborate  chemistry  of  our  o\v* 


OP  4N  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER.  23 It 

days  has  reversed  all  these  motions  of  our  simple  an 
iestors,  which  results  in  every  stage  that  to  them 
would  have  realized  the  most  fantastic  amongst  the 
promises  of  thaumaturgy.  Insolent  vaunt  of  Paracel¬ 
sus,  that  he  would  restore  the  original  rose  or  violet  out 
ot  the  ashes  settling  from  its  combustion  —  that  in  now 
rivalled  in  this  modern  achievement.  The  traces  of 
each  successive  handwriting,  regularly  effaced,  as  had 
been  imagined,  have,  in  the  inverse  order,  been  regu¬ 
larly  called  back :  the  footsteps  of  the  game  pursued, 
wolf  or  stag,  in  each  several  chase,  have  been  un¬ 
linked,  and  hunted  back  through  all  their  doubles; 
and,  as  the  chorus  of  the  Athenian  stage  unwove 
through  the  antistrophe  every  step  that  had  been  mys¬ 
tically  woven  through  the  strophe,  so,  by  our  modem 
conjurations  of  science,  secrets  of  ages  remote  from 
each  other  have  been  exorcised^  from  the  accumu¬ 
lated  shadows  of  centuries.  Chemistry,  a  witch  as 
potent  as  the  Erictho  of  Lucanto  ( Pharsalia ,  lib.  vi. 
or  vii.),  has  extorted  by  her  torments,  from  the  dust 
and  ashes  of  forgotten  centuries,  the  secrets  of  a  life 
extinct  for  the  general  eye,  but  still  glowing  in  the 
embers.  Even  the  fable  of  the  Phoenix,  that  secular 
jird,  who  propagated  his  solitary  existence,  and  his 
solitary  births,  along  the  line  of  centuries,  through 
sternal  relays  of  funeral  mists,  is  but  a  type  of  what 
we  have  done  with  Palimpsests.  We  have  backed 
-  ■  -  -  - - - - - 

*  Some  readers  may  be  apt  to  suppose,  rom  all  English  experi¬ 
ence,  that  the  word  exorcise  means  properly  banishment  to  the 
'hades.  Not  so.  Citation  Jrorn  tne  shades,  or  sometimes  tha 
•muring  coercion  of  mystic  adju-atioas.  is  -lore  truly  the  primary 


m 


SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


upon  each  phoenix  in  the  long  regressus,  and  forced 
him  to  expose  his  ancestral  phoenix,  sleeping  in  the 
ashes  below  his  own  ashes.  Our  good  old  forefathers 
would  have  been  aghast  at  our  sorceries;  and,  if  they 
speculated  on  the  propriety  of  burning  Dr.  Faustus. 
us  they  would  have  burned  by  acclamation.  Trial 
there  would  have  been  none ;  and  they  could  not 
otherwise  have  satisfied  their  horror  of  the  brazen  prof¬ 
ligacy  marking  our  modem  magic,  than  by  ploughing 
up  the  houses  of  all  who  had  been  parties  to  it,  and 
sowing  the  ground  with  salt. 

Fancy  not,  reader,  that  this  tumult  of  images,  illus¬ 
trative  or  allusive,  moves  under  any  impulse  or  pur¬ 
pose  of  mirth.  It  is  but  the  coruscation  of  a  restless 
understanding,  often  made  ten  times  more  so  by  irri¬ 
tation  of  the  nerves,  such  as  you  will  first  learn  to 
comprehend  (its  how  and  its  why)  some  stage  or  two 
ahead.  The  image,  the  memorial,  the  record,  which 
for  me  is  derived  from  a  palimpsest,  as  to  one  great 
fact  in  our  human  being,  and  which  immediately  I 
will  show  you,  is  but  too  repellent  of  laughter;  or, 
even  if  laughter  had  been  possible,  it  would  have  been 
such  laughter  as  oftentimes  is  thrown  off  from  the 
fie  ds  of  ocean, ^  laughter  that  hides,  or  that  seems  to 


*  “  Laughter  from  the  fields  of  ocean.”  —  Many  readers  'will 
recall,  though,  at  the  moment  of  writing,  my  own  thoughts  did 
not  recall,  the  well-known  passage  in  the  Prometheus  — 

•  novjtwv  tb  y.v^.ar(x>v 
dvr^id^tov  yekaotja. 

O  multitudinous  laughter  ot  the  ocean  billows !  ”  It  is  noi 
tlear  whether  iEsci  ylu s  contemplated  the  laughter  as  addressing 
Us  ear  or  the  eve. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


67ade  mustering  tumult ;  foam-bells  that  weave  gar¬ 
lands  of  phosphoric  radiance  for  one  moment  rcund 
the  eddies  of  gleaming  abysses;  mimicries  of  earth- 
born  flowers  that  for  the  eye  raise  phantoms  of  gayety, 
as  oftentimes  for  the  ear  they  raise  the  echoes  of  fugitive 

V_3 

laughter,  mixing  with  the  ravings  and  choir-voices  of  an 
angry  sea. 

What  else  than  a  natural  and  mighty  palimpsest  is 
the  human  brain  ?  Such  a  palimpsest  is  my  brain ;  such 
a  palimpsest,  oh  reader!  is  yours.  Everlasting  layers 
of  ideas,  images,  feelings,  have  fallen  upon  your  brain 
softly  as  light.  Each  succession  has  seemed  to  bury 
all  that  went  before.  And  yet,  in  reality,  not  one  ha? 
been  extinguished.  And  if,  in  the  vellum  palimpsest, 
lying  amongst  the  other  diplomats  of  human  archives 
or  libraries,  there  is  anything  fantastic  or  which  moves 
to  laughter,  as  oftentimes  there  is  in  the  grotesque 
collisions  of  those  successive  themes,  having  no  naturai 
connection,  which  by  pure  accident  have  consecutively 
occupied  the  roll,  yet,  in  our  own  heaven-created  pa¬ 
limpsest,  the  deep  memorial  palimpsest  of  the  brain, 
.here  are  not  and  cannot  be  such  incoherencies.  The 
fleeting  accidents  of  a  man’s  life,  and  its  external  shows, 
may  indeed  be  irrelate  and  incongruous ;  but  the  organ¬ 
izing  principles  which  fuse  into  harmony,  and  gather 
about  fixed  predetermined  centres,  whatever  heterogene¬ 
ous  elements  life  may  have  accumulated  from  without, 
will  not  permit  the  grandeur  of  human  unity  greatly  to 
De  violated,  or  its  ultimate  repose  to  be  troubled,  in  the 
Retrospect  from  dying  moments  oi  from  other  great 
,onrnilsions. 

Such  a  convulsion  is  tht*  struggle  of  gradual  suffo 


£*34  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

cation,  as  in  drowning;  and,  in  the  original  Opiim 
Confessions,  I  mentioned  a  case  of  that  natuie  com¬ 
municated  to  me  by  a  lady  from  her  own  chi!  list* 
experience.  The  lady  is  still  living,  though  now  of 
unusually  great  age ;  and  I  may  mention  that  amongst 
her  faults  never  was  numbered  any  levity  of  principle, 
or  carelessness  of  the  most  scrupulous  veracity ;  but 
on  the  contrary,  such  faults  as  arise  from  austerity,  too 
harsh,  perhaps,  and  gloomy  indulgent  neither  to  others 
nor  herself.  And,  at  the  time  of  relating  this  incident, 
when  already  very  old,  she  had  become  religious  to 
asceticism.  According  to  my  present  belief,  she  had 
completed  her  ninth  year,  when,  playing  by  the  side  ot 
a  solitary  brook,  she  fell  into  one  of  its  deepest  pools. 
Eventually,  but  after  what  lapse  of  time  nobody  ever 
knew,  she  was  saved  from  death  by  a  farmer,  who 
riding  in  some  distant  lane,  had  seen  her  rise  to  the 
surface  ;  but  not  until  she  had  descended  within  the 
abyss  of  death,  and  looked  into  its  secrets,  as  far,  per¬ 
haps,  as  ever  human  eye  can  have  looked  that  had 
permission  to  return.  At  a  certain  stage  of  this  descent, 
a  blow  seemed  to  strike  her,  phosphoric  radiance  sprang 
forth  from  her  eyeballs;  and  immediately  a  mighty 
theatre  expanded  within  her  brain.  In  a  moment,  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  every  act,  every  design  of 
her  past  life,  lived  again,  arraying  themselves  not  aa 
&  succession,  but  as  parts  of  a  coexistence.  Such  a 
light  fell  upon  the  whole  path  of  her  life  backwards 
nto  the  shades  of  infancy,  as  the  light,  perhaps,  which 
wrapt  the  destined  Apostle  on  his  road  to  Damascus 
Vet  that  light  blinded  for  a  season  ;  but  hers  poure'* 
celestial  vision  upon  the  brain,  so  that  hex  consciousness 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


235 


became  omnipresent  at  one  moment  to  every  feature  in 
the  infinite  review. 

This  anecdote  was  treated  sceptically  at  the  time 
by  some  critics.  But,  besides  that  it  has  since  been 
confirmed  by  other  experience  essentially  the  same, 
reported  by  other  parties  in  the  same  circumstances, 
who  had  never  heard  of  each  other,  the  true  point  for 
astonishment  is  not  the  simultaneity  of  arrangement 
under  which  the  past  events  of  life,  though  in  fact 
successive,  had  formed  their  dread  line  of  revelation. 
This  was  but  a  secondary  phenomenon  ;  the  deeper  lay 
in  the  resurrection  itself,  and  the  possibility  of  resurrec¬ 
tion,  for  what  had  so  long  slept  in  the  dust.  A  pall, 
deep  as  oblivion,  had  been  thrown  by  life  over  every 
trace  of  these  experiences;  and  yet  suddenly,  at  a 
silent  command,  at  the  signal  of  a  blazing  rocket  sent 
up  from  the  brain,  the  pall  draws  up,  and  the  whole 
depths  of  the  theatre  are  exposed.  Here  was  the 
greater  mystery  :  now  this  mystery  is  liable  to  no  doubt; 
for  it  is  repeated,  and  ten  thousand  times  repeated,  by 
opium,  for  those  who  are  its  martyrs. 

Yes,  reader,  countless  are  the  mysterious  hand-writ¬ 
ings  of  grief  or  joy  which  have  inscribed  themselves 
successively  upon  the  palimpsest  of  your  brain ;  and, 
like  the  annual  leaves  of  aboriginal  forests,  or  the 
undissolving  snows  on  the  Himalaya,  or  light  falling 
upon  light,  the  endless  strata  have  covered  up  each 
other  in  forgetfulness.  But  by  the  hour  of  death,  but 
py  fever,  but  by  the  searchings  of  opium,  all  these  can 
revive  in  strength.  They  aie  no  dead,  but  sleeping 
In  the  illustration  imagined  by  myself,  from  the  case 
of  'em <?  individual  palimpsest,  the  Grecian  tragedy  had 


H36  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

seemed  to  be  displaced,  but  was  not  displaced,  by  the 
monkish  legend;  and  the  monkish  legend  had  seemed 
to  be  displaced,  but  was  not  displaced,  by  the  knightly 
romance.  In  some  potent  convulsion  of  the  system, 
11  wheels  back  into  its  earliest  elementary  stage.  The 
bewildering  romance,  light  tarnished  with  darkness,  the 
semi-fabulous  legend,  truth  celestial  mixed  with  human 
falsehoods,  these  fade  even  of  themselves,  as  life  ad¬ 
vances.  The  romance  has  perished  that  the  young 
man  adored;  the  legend  has  gone  that  deluded  the  boy; 
but  the  deep,  deep  tragedies  of  infancy,  as  when  the 
child’s  hands  were  unlinked  forever  from  his  mother’s 
neck,  or  his  lips  forever  from  his  sister’s  kisses,  these 
remain  lurking  below  all,  and  these  lurk  to  the  last. 
Alchemy  there  is  none  of  passion  or  disease  that  can 
scorch  away  these  immortal  impresses ;  and  the  dream 
.which  closed  the  preceding  section,  together  with  the 
succeeding  dreams  of  this  (which  may  be  viewed  as 
in  the  nature  of  choruses  winding  up  the  overture 
contained  in  Part  I.),  are  but  illustrations  of  this  truth, 
,uch  as  every  man  probably  will  meet  experimentally 
who  passes  through  similar  convulsions  of  dreaming  or 
delirium  from  any  similar  or  equal  disturbance  in  his 
nature.^ 


♦This,  it  may  be  said,  requires  a  corresponding  duration  of 
experience  ^ut,  as  an  argument  for  this  mysterious  power  lurking 
in  our  nature,  I  may  remind  the  reader  of  one  phenomenon  open  to 
the  notice  of  everybody,  namely,  the  tendency  of  very  aged  per* 
ions  to  throw  back  and  concentrate  the  light  of  their  memory  upo| 
■cones  of  earCy  childhood,  as  to  which  they  recall  many  traces  tha 
fcscl  faded  evQn  to  themselves  in  middle  life,  whilst  they  often  f or 
ret  altogether  the  whole  intermediate  stages  of  their  experience 
This  shows  that  naturally,  and  without  violent  agencies  th* 
■mean  brain  is  by  tendency  a  palimpsest. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


231 


LEV  ANA  AND  OUR  LADIES  OF  SORROW. 

Oftentimes  at  Oxford  I  saw  Levana  in  my  dreams. 

knew  her  by  her  Roman  symbols.  Who  is  Levana  1 
Reader,  that  do  not  pretend  to  have  leisure  for  very 
much  scholarship,  you  will  not  be  angry  with  me  for 
telling  you.  Levana  was  the  Roman  goddess  that  per¬ 
formed  for  the  new-born  infant  the  earliest  office  of 
ennobling  kindness,  —  typical,  by  its  mode,  of  that 
grandeur  which  belongs  to  man  everywhere,  and  of  that 
benignity  in  powers  invisible  which  even  in  Pagan 
worlds  sometimes  descends  to  sustain  it.  At  the  very 
moment  of  birth,  just  as  the  infant  tasted  for  the  first 
time  the  atmosphere  of  our  troubled  planet,  it  was  laid 
on  the  ground.  That  might  bear  different  interpreta¬ 
tions.  But  immediately,  lest  so  grand  a  creature  should 
grovel  there  for  more  than  one  instant,  either  the  pater¬ 
nal  hand,  as  proxy  for  the  goddess  Levana,  or  some 
near  kinsman,  as  proxy  for  the  father,  raised  it  upright, 
bade  it  look  erect  as  the  king  of  all  this  world,  and! 
presented  its  forehead  to  the  stars,  saying,  perhaps,  in 
his  heart,  “  Behold  what  is  greater  than  yourselves !  ** 
This  symbolic  act  represented  the  function  of  Levana, 
And  that  mysterious  lady,  who  never  revealed  her  face 
(except  to  me  in  dreams),  but  always  acted  by  delega¬ 
tion,  had  her  name  from  the  Latin  verb  (as  still  it  is  the 
rtalian  verb)  levare ,  to  raise  aloft. 

This  is  the  explanation  cf  Levana.  And  hence  it  has 
arisen  that  some  people  have  understood  by  Levana  the 
tutelxry  power  that  contr>.s  the  education  of  the  nu> 
«ery  She,  that  would  not  suffer  at  his  birth  even  a 


238 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


prefigurative  or  mimic  degradation  for  her  awful  ward, 
fer  less  could  be  supposed  to  suffer  the  real  degradation 
Attaching  to  the  non-development  of  his  powers.  She 
therefore  watches  over  human  education.  Now,  the 
word  educo ,  with  the  penultimate  short,  was  derivea 
(by  a  process  often  exemplified  in  the  crystallization  of 
languages)  from  the  word  educo ,  with  the  penultimate 
long.  Whatsoever  educes ,  or  develops,  educates.  By 
the  education  of  Levana,  therefore,  is  meant,  —  not  the 
poor  machinery  that  moves  by  spelling-books  and  gram¬ 
mars,  but  by  that  mighty  system  of  central  forces  hid' 
den  in  the  deep  bosom  of  human  life,  which  by  passion, 
by  strife,  by  temptation,  by  the  energies  of  resistance, 
works  forever  upon  children,  —  resting  not  day  or  night, 
any  more  than  the  mighty  wheel  of  day  and  night  them¬ 
selves,  whose  moments,  like  restless  spokes,  are  glim¬ 
mering^  forever  as  they  revolve. 

If,  then,  these  are  the  ministries  by  which  Levana 
works,  how  profoundly  must  she  reverence  the  agen¬ 
cies  of  grief!  But  you,  reader!  think,  —  that  children 

*  “  Glimmering- .”  —  As  I  have  never  allowed  myself  to  covet  any 
naan’s  ox  nor  his  ass,  nor  anything  that  is  his,  still  less  would  it 
become  a  philosopher  to  covet  other  people’s  images,  or  meta¬ 
phors.  Here,  therefore,  I  restore  to  Mr.  Wordsworth  this  fine 
image  of  the  revolving  wheel,  and  the  glimmering  spokes,  as  applied 
by  him  to  the  flying  successions  of  day  and  night.  I  borrowed  it 
for  one  moment  in  order  to  point  my  own  sentence  ;  which  being 
ione,  the  reader  is  witness  that  I  now  pay  it  back  instantly  by  a 
.tote  made  for  that  sole  purpose.  On  the  same  principle  I  often 
borrow  their  seals  from  young  ladies,  when  closing  my  letters. 
Because  there  is  sure  to  be  some  tender  sentiment  upon  their,  abou 
“memory,”  or  “hope,”  or  “roses,  or  “reunion;”  and  my  corre¬ 
spondent  must  be  a  sad  brute  who  is  not  touched  by  the  eloquent 
the  seal,  even  if  his  taste  is  so  bad  that  he  remains  deaf  to 
eua*. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


238 


generally  are  not  liable  to  grief  such  as  mine.  There 
are  two  senses  in  the  .word  generally , —  the  sense  of 
Euclid,  where  it  means  universally  (or  in  the  whole 
extent  of  the  genus ),  and  a  foolish  sense  of  this  wTorld, 
where  it  means  usually .  Now,  I  am  far  from  saying 
that  children  universally  are  capable  of  grief  like  mine- 
But  there  are  more  than  you  ever  heard  of  who  die  of 
grief  in  this  island  of  ours.  I  will  tell  you  a  common 
case.  The  rules  of  Eton  require  that  a  boy  on  the 
foundation  should  be  there  twelve  years :  he  is  super¬ 
annuated  at  eighteen,  consequently  he  must  come  at 
six.  Children  torn  away  from  mothers  and  sisters  at 
that  age  not  unfrequently  die.  I  speak  of  what  I  know. 
The  complaint  is  not  entered  by  the  registrar  as  grief; 
but  that  it  is.  Grief  of  that  sort,  and  at  that  age,  has 
killed  more  than  ever  have  been  counted  amongst  its 
martyrs. 

Therefore  it  is  that  Levana  often  communes  with  the 
powers  that  shake  man’s  heart :  therefore  it  is  that  she 
dotes  upon  grief.  “  These  ladies,”  said  I  softly  to  my¬ 
self,  on  seeing  the  ministers  with  whom  Levana  was 
conversing,  “  these  are  the  Sorrows ;  and  they  are  three 
in  number,  as  the  Graces  are  three,  who  dress  man’s 
life  with  beauty :  the  Parc &  are  three,  who  weave  the 
dark  arras  of  man’s  life  in  their  mysterious  loom  always 
with  colors  sad  in  part,  sometimes  angry  with  tragic 
crimson  and  black;  the  Furies  are  three,  who  visit 
with  retributions  called  from  the  other  side  of  the  grave 
offences  that  walk  upon  this*  and  at  once  even  the 
Muses  were  but  three,  who  fit  *he  harp,  the  trumpet,  of 
the  lute,  to  the  great  burdens  of  man’s  impassioned 
:reations  fhe.se  are  the  Sorrow’s,  all  three  of  whom  I 

4 


BIO 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


know.”  The  last  words  I  say  now;  but  in  Oxford  1 
eaid,  “  one  of  whom  I  know,  and  the  others  too  surely 
I  shall  know,”  For  already,  in  my  fervent  youth,  i 
saw  (dimly  relieved  upon  the  dark  back-giound  of  my 
dreams)  the  imperfect  lineaments  of  the  awful  sister®. 
These  sisters  - —  by  what  name  shall  we  call  them  ? 

If  I  say  simply,  “  The  Sorrows,”  there  will  be  a 
chance  of  mistaking  the  term;  it  might  be  understood 
of  individual  sorrow,  —  separate  cases  of  sorrow,— 
whereas  I  want  a  term  expressing  the  mighty  abstrac¬ 
tions  that  incarnate  themselves  in  all  individual  suffer¬ 
ings  of  man’s  heart;  and  I  wish  to  have  these  abstrac¬ 
tions  presented  as  impersonations,  that  is,  as  clothed 
with  human  attributes  of  life,  and  with  functions  point¬ 
ing  to  flesh.  Let  us  call  them,  therefore,  Our  Ladies 
of  Sorrow.  I  know  them  thoroughly,  and  have  walked 
in  all  their  kingdoms.  Three  sisters  they  are,  of  one 
mysterious  household;  and  their  paths  are  wide  apart; 
but  of  their  dominion  there  is  no  end.  Them  I  saw 
often  conversing  with  Levana.  and  sometimes  about  my¬ 
self.  Do  they  talk,  then  ?  O,  no !  Mighty  phantoma 
like  these  disdain  the  infirmities  of  language.  They 
may  utter  voices  through  the  organs  of  man  when  they 
dwed  in  human  hearts,  but  amongst  themselves  is  no 
voice  nor  sound  ;  eternal  silence  reigns  in  their  king¬ 
doms.  They  spoke  not,  as  they  talked  with  Levana ; 
they  whispered  not;  they  sang  not;  though  oftentimes 
methought  they  might  have  sung:  for  I  upon  earth 
bad  heard  their  mysteries  oftentimes  deciphered  by 
harp  and  timbrel,  by  dulcimer  and  organ.  Like  God, 
wlnse  servants  they  are,  they  utter  their  pleasure 
tot  by  sounds  tnat  perish,  or  by  words  that  go  astray 


OP  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER 


24) 


out  by  signs  in  hea\en,  by  changes  on  earth,  by 
pulses  in  secret  rivers,  heraldries  painted  on  darkness, 
tind  hieroglyphics  written  on  the  tablets  of  the  brain. 
They  wheeled  in  mazes ;  I  spelled  the  steps.  They 
telegraphed  frem  afar;  I  read  the  signrds.  They  con* 
frpired  together;  anu  on  the  mirrors  of  darkness  my 
ey  e  traced  the  plots.  Theirs  were  the  symoois ;  mme 
are  the  words. 

What  is  it  the  sisters  are?  What  is  it  that  they  do? 
Let  me  describe  their  form,  and  their  presence ;  if  form 
it  were  that  still  fluctuated  in  its  outline;  or  presence 
it  were  that  forever  advanced  to  the  front,  or  forever 
receded  amongst  shades. 

The  eldest  of  the  three  is  named  Mater  Lachry - 
marum ,  Our  Lady  of  Tears.  She  it  is  that  night  and 
day  raves  and  moans,  calling  for  vanished  faces.  She 
stood  in  Kama,  where  a  voice  was  heard  of  lamentation, 
—  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children,  and  refused  to  be 
comforted.  She  it  was  that  stood  in  Bethlehem  on  the 
wight  when  Herod’s  sword  swept  its  nurseries  of  Inno¬ 
cents,  and  the  little  feet  were  stiffened  forever,  which, 
neard.  at  times  as  they  tottered  along  floors  overhead, 
woke  pulses  of  love  in  household  hearts  that  were  not 
unmarked  in  heaven. 

Her  eyes  are  sweet  9  ad  subtile,  wild  and  sleepy,  by 
turns ;  oftentimes  rising  to  the  clouds,  oftentimes  chal¬ 
lenging  the  heavens.  She  wears  a  diadem  round  her 
lead.  And  I  knew  by  childish  memories  that  she  could 
go  abroad  upon  the  winds,  when  she  heard  that  sobbing 
of  litanies,  or  the  thundering  of  organs,  and  when  she 
Wheld  die  mustering  cf  summer  clouds.  This  sister, 
the  elder,  it  ;s  that  carries  keys  more  than  papal  at  he* 

18 


242 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


girdle,  which  open  every  cottage  and  every  palace 
She,  to  my  knowledge,  sate  all  last  summer  by  the  bed 
side  of  the  blir.  d  beggar,  him  that  so  often  and  so  gladly 
I  talked  with,  whose  pious  daughter,  eight  years  old 
with  the  sunny  countenance,  resisted  the  temptations  of 
play  and  village  mirth  to  travel  all  day  long  on  dusty 
roads  with  her  afflicted  father.  For  this  did  God  send 
her  a  great  reward.  In  the  spring-time  of  the  year,  and 
whilst  yet  her  own  spring  was  budding,  he  recalled  hei 
to  himself.  But  her  blind  father  mourns  forever  over 
her ;  still  he  dreams  at  midnight  that  the  little  guiding 
hand  is  locked  within  his  own ;  and  still  he  wakens  to 
a  darkness  that  is  now  within  a  second  and  a  deeper 
darkness.  This  Mater  Lachrymarum  also  has  been  sit¬ 
ting  all  this  winter  of  1844-5  within  the  bedchamber 
of  the  Czar,  bringing  before  his  eyes  a  daughter  (not 
less  pious)  that  vanished  to  God  not  less  suddenly,  and 
eft  behind  her  a  darkness  not  less  profound.  By  the 
power  of  her  keys  it  is  that  Our  Lady  of  Tears  glides 
a  ghostly  intruder  into  the  chambers  of  sleepless  men, 
Beepless  women,  sleepless  children,  from  Ganges  to  the 
Nile,  from  Nile  to  Mississippi.  And  her,  because  she 
©  the  first-born  of  her  house,  and  has  the  widest  empire, 
et  us  honor  w’th  the  title  of  “  Madonna.” 

The  second  sister  is  called  Mater  Suspiriorum ,  Our 
Lady  of  Sighs.  She  never  scales  the  clouds,  nor  walks 
Tibrcad  upon  the  winds.  She  wears  no  diadem.  Anc 
her  eyes,  if  they  were  ever  seen,  would  be  neithe 
s  weet  nor  subtile ;  no  man  could  read  their  story ;  the 
?rould  be  found  filled  with  perishing  dreams,  and  with 
wrecks  of  forgotten  delirium.  But  she  raises  not  he 
eyes;  her  head,  on  which  sits  a  dilapidated  turban 


OF  A  A  ENOntsa  OPIUM-EATER. 


243 


droops  forever,  forever  fastens  on  the  dust.  She  weeps 
not.  She  groans  not.  But  she  sighs  inaudibly  at  inter¬ 
vals.  Her  sister  Madonna  is  oftentimes  stormy  ana 
frantic,  raging  in  the  highest  against  heaven,  and 
demanding  back  her  darlings.  But  Our  Lady  of  S  ighs 
never  clamors,  never  defies,  dreams  not  of  rebeliioup 
aspirations.  She  is  humble  to  abjectness.  Hers  is  the 
meekness  that  belongs  to  the  hopeless.  Murmur  she 
may,  but  it  is  in  her  sleep.  Whisper  she  may,  but  it  u 
to  herself  in  the  twilight.  Mutter  she  does  at  times, 
but  it  is  in  solitary  places  that  are  desolate  as  she  is 
desolate,  in  ruined  cities,  and  when  the  sun  has  gone 
down  to  his  rest.  This  sister  is  the  visiter  of  the  Pariah, 
of  the  Jew,  of  the  bondsman  to  the  oar  in  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  galleys;  of  the  English  criminal  in  Norfolk 
Island,  blotted  out  from  the  books  of  remembrance  in 
sweet  far-off  England;  of  the  baffled  penitent  reverting 
his  eyes  forever  upon  a  solitary  grave,  which  to  him 
3eems  the  altar  overthrown  of  some  past  and  blood} 
sacrifice,  on  which  altar  no  oblations  can  now  be  avail¬ 
ing,  whether  towards  pardon  that  he  might  implore,  op 
towards  reparation  that  he  might  attempt.  Every  slave 
that  at  noonday  looks  up  to  the  tropical  sun  with  timid 
reproach,  as  he  points  with  one  hand  to  the  earth,  our 
general  mother,  but  for  him  a  step-mother, — as  he  points 
with  the  other  hand  to  the  Bible,  our  general  teacher, 
but  against  him  sealed  and  sequestered ;  ^ — 'every 


♦This,  the  riader  will  be  aware,  applies  chiefly  to  the  cotton  and 
•obacco  States  of  North  America  ;  but  not  to  them  only  :  on  which 
iccount  I  have  not  scrupled  to  figure  the  sun,  which  looks  down 
«pon  slavery,  as  tropical;  no  matter  if  strictly  within  the  tropes 
i  *imp’y  sg  neat  t)  riiem  as  to  produce  a  s'mi’ar  climate 


E44  A  St^UEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

Woman  sitting  in  darkness,  without  love  to  shekel  hel 
bead,  or  hope  to  illumine  her  solitude,  because  the 
Heaven-born  instincts  kindling  in  her  nature  germs  of 
hoy  affections,  which  God  implanted  in  her  womanl) 
bosom,  having  been  stifled  by  social  necessities,  now 
burn  sullenly  to  waste,  like  sepulchral  lamps  amongst 
the  ancients;  every  nun  defrauded  of  her  unreturn'.ng 
May-time  by  wicked  kinsman,  whom  God  will  judge; 
every  captive  in  every  dungeon  ;  all  that  are  betrayed, 
and  all  that  are  rejected  ;  outcasts  by  traditionary  law, 
end  children  of  hereditary  disgrace,  —  all  these  waik 
with  Our  Lady  of  Sighs.  She  also  carries  a  key ; 
but  she  needs  it  little.  For  her  kingdom  is  chiefly 
amongst  the  tents  of  Shem,  and  the  houseless  vagrant 
of  every  clime.  Yet  in  the  very  highest  ranks  of  man 
she  finds  chapels  of  her  own ;  and  even  in  glorious 
England  there  are  some  that,  to  the  world,  carry  their 
heads  as  proudly  as  the  reindeer,  who  yet  secretly  have 
received  her  mark  upon  their  foreheads. 

But  the  third  sister,  who  is  also  the  youngest - -  ! 

Hush!  whisper  whilst  we  talk  of  her !  Her  kingdom 
is  not  large,  or  else  no  flesh  should  live ;  but  within  that 
kingdom  all  power  is  hers.  Her  head,  turreted  like  that 
of  Cybele,  rises  almost  beyond  the  reach  of  sight.  She 
droops  not ;  and  her  eyes  rising  so  high  might  be  hidden 
by  distance.  But,  being  what  they  are,  they  cannot  be 
Hidden ;  througn  the  treble  veil  of  crape  which  she 
drears,  the  fierce  light  of  a  blazing  misery,  that  rests 
aot  for  matins  or  for  vespers,  for  noon  of  day  or  noon 
of  night,  for  ebbing  or  for  flowing  tide,  may  be  read 
Srom  the  very  ground.  She  is  the  defier  of  God.  Sh 
also  iri  the  motner  of  lunacies,  and  the  suggestress  o * 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OFIl  M-EATER  215 

Buicides,  Deep  Me  the  roots  of  her  power ;  but  narrow 
is  the  nation  that  she  ru.es.  For  she  can  approach  only 
those  in  whom  a  profound  nature  has  been  upheaved 
by  central  convulsions ;  in  whom  the  heart  trembles 
BLd  the  brain  rocks  under  conspiracies  of  tempest,  from 
without  and  tempest  from  within.  Madonna  rnovt-s 
with  uncertain  steps,  fast  or  slow,  but  still  with  tragic 
grace.  Our  Lady  of  Sighs  creeps  timidly  and  stealth* 
ily.  But  this  youngest  sister  moves  with  incalculable 
motions,  bounding,  and  with  a  tiger’s  leaps.  She  car¬ 
ries  no  key ;  for,  though  coming  rarely  amongst  men, 
she  storms  all  doors  at  which  she  is  permitted  to  enter 
at  all.  And  her  name  is  Mater  Tenehrarum ,  —  Our 
Lady  of  Darkness. 

These  were  the  Semnai  Theai ,  or  Sublime  God¬ 
desses,*  these  were  the  Eumenides ,  or  Gracious  Ladies 
(so  called  by  antiquity  in  shuddering  propitiation)  of 
my  Oxford  dreams.  Madonna  spoke.  She  spoke  by 
her  mysterious  hand.  Touching  my  head,  she  beck¬ 
oned  to  Our  Lady  of  Sighs ;  and  what  she  spoke,  trans¬ 
lated  out  of  the  signs  which  (except  in  dreams)  no  man 
reads,  was  this : 

“  Lo !  here  is  he,  whom  in  childhood  I  dedicated  to 
my  altars.  This  is  he  that  once  I  made  my  darling 
Him  I  led  astray,  him  1  beguiled,  and  from  heaven  I 
stole  away  his  young  heart  to  mine.  Through  me  did 
he  become  idolatrous ;  and  through  rna  it  was,  ty  lan- 


*  u  Sublime  Goddesses .”  —  The  word  otpvog  is  usually  rendered 
renei  able  in  dictionaries  ;  not  a  very  nattering  epithet  fcr  emales. 
Bat  by  weighing  a,  number  of  passages  in  which  the  word  is  usee, 
pointedly,  I  aoi  disposed  *o  think  that  it  comes  nearest  to  our  idef 
the  subli'ins,  as  near  as  a  G^eek  word  co  ild  come. 


m 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


guishing  desires,  that  he  worshipped  the  worm,  and 
prayed  to  the  wormy  grave.  Holy  was  the  grave  to 
him ;  lovely  was  its  darkness ;  saintly  its  corruption 
Him,  this  young  idolator,  I  have  seasoned  for  thee 
dear  gentle  Sister  of  Sighs !  Do  thou  take  him  now 
to  thy  heart,  and  season  him  for  our  dreadful  sister. 
And  thou,”  —  turning  to  the  Mater  Tenebrarum,  she 
said,  —  “  wicked  sister,  that  temptest  and  hatest,  do 
thou  take  him  from  her.  See  that  thy  sceptre  lie 
heavy  on  his  head.  Suffer  not  woman  and  her  tender¬ 
ness  to  sit  near  him  in  his  darkness.  Banish  the  frail¬ 
ties  of  hope,  wither  the  relenting  of  love,  scorch  the 
fountains  of  tears,  curse  him  as  only  thou  canst  curse. 
So  shall  he  be  accomplished  in  the  furnace,  so  shall 
he  see  the  things  that  ought  not  to  be  seen,  sights  that 
are  abominable,  and  secrets  that  are  unutterable.  So 
shall  he  read  elder  truths,  sad  truths,  grand  truths,  fear 
ful  truths.  So  shall  he  rise  again  before  he  dies.  And 
so  shall  our  commission  be  accomplished  which  from 
God  we  had,  —  to  plague  his  heart  until  we  had  un- 
.blded  the  capacities  of  his  spirit.”  * 


♦The  reader,  who  wishes  at  all  to  understand  the  course  of  these 
Confessions,  ought  not  to  pass  over  this  dream-legend.  There  is 
nc  great  wonder  that  a  vision,  which  occupied  my  waking  thoughts 
in  those  years,  should  reappear  in  my  dreams.  It  was,  in  fact,  a 
leerend  recurring  in  sleep,  most  of  which  I  had  myself  silently  writ- 
tea  or  sculptured  in  my  daylight  reveries.  But  its  importance  to 
vi.e  present  Confessions  is  this,  that  it  rehearses  or  prefigures  theii 
course.  This  first  part  belongs  to  Madonna.  The  third  belongs 
io  me  “Mater  Suspiriorum,”  and  will  be  entitled  The  Pariah 
Worlds.  The  fourth,  which  terminates  the  work,  belongs  to  th 
4  Mau  r  Tenebrarum,”  and  will  be  entitled  The' Kingdom  of  Dark 
ness.  As  to  the  second,  it  is  an  interpolation  requisite  to  U» 
Effect  o'"  the  others  und  will  be  explained  in  its  proper  place. 


OP  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


241 


THE  APPARITION  OF  THE  BROCKEN. 

Ascend  with  me  on  this  dazzling  Whitsunday  the 
Brocken  of  North  Germany.  The  dawn  opened  in 
cloudless  beauty;  it  is  a  dawn  of  bridal  June;  but, 
as  the  hours  advanced,  her  youngest  sister  April,  that 
sometimes  cares  little  for  racing  across  both  frontiers 
of  May,  frets  the  bridal  lady’s  sunny  temper  with 
sallies  of  wheeling  and  careering  showers,  flying  and 
pursuing,  opening  and  closing,  hiding  and  restoring. 
On  such  a  morning,  and  reaching  the  summits  of  the 
forest  mountain  about  sunrise,  we  shall  have  one 
chance  the  more  for  seeing  the  famous  Spectre  of  the 
Brocken.*  Who  and  what  is  he  ?  He  is  a  solitary 


*  “  Spectre  of  the  Brocken .” —  This  very  striking  \  henomenon  ha* 
been  continually  described  by  writers,  both  German  and  English 
for  the  last  fifty  years.  Many  readers,  however,  will  not  have  met 
with  these  descriptions  ;  and  on  their  account  I  add  a  few  words  in 
explanation,  referring  them  for  the  best  scientific  comment  on  the 
case  to  Sir  David  Brewster’s  “  Natural  Magic.”  The  spectre  takes 
the  shape  of  a  human  figure,  or,  if  the  visiters  are  more  than  one, 
hen  the  spectres  multiply  ;  they  arrange  themselves  on  the  blue 
k_ound  of  the  sky,  or  the  dark  ground  of  any  clouds  that  maybe  in 
he  right  quarter,  or  perhaps  they  are  strongly  relieved  against  a 
curtain  of  rock,  at  a  distance  of  some  miles,  and  always  exhibiting 
gigantic  proportions.  At  first,  from  the  distance  and  the  colossal 
size,  every  spectator  supposes  the  appearance  to  be  quite  independ¬ 
ent  of  himself.  But  very  soon  he  is  surprised  to  observe  his  own 
potions  and  gestures  mimicked  ;  and  wakens  to  the  conviction  that 
he  phantom  is  but  a  dilated  reflecron  of  himself.  This  Titan 
amongst  the  apparitions  of  earth  is  exceedingly  capricious  vanish¬ 
ing  abruptly  for  reasons  best  kno  vn  to  himself,  and  more  coy  in 
mmirg  forward  than  the  Lady  Echo  of  Ovid.  One  reason  why  h« 
«  seen  so  seldom  must  be  ascribed  tc  he  concurrence  of  conditions 
under  wlciich  only  the  phenomenon  can  be  manifested  ;  the  sun  must 


24 S 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


apparition,  in  the  sense  of  loving  solitude;  else  he  W 
not  always  solitary  in  his  personal  manifestations,  but 
on  proper  occasions,  has  been  known  to  unmask  a 
strength  quite  sufficient  to  alarm  those  who  had  been 
insulting  him. 

Now,  in  order  to  test  the  nature  of  this  mysterious 
apparition,  we  will  try  two  or  three  experiments  upon 
him.  What  we  fear,  and  with  some  reason,  is,  that  a  a 
he  lived  so  many  ages  with  foul  Pagan  sorcerers,  and 
witnessed  so  many  centuries  of  dark  idolatries,  his  heart 
may  have  been  corrupted;  and  that  even  now  his  faith 
may  be  wavering  or  impure.  We  will  try. 

Make  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  observe  whether  he 
repeats  it  (as  on  Whitsunday^  he  surely  ought  to  do). 

be  near  to  the  horizon  (which  of  itself  implies  a  time  of  day  incon¬ 
venient  to  a  person  starting  from  a  station  as  distant  as  Elbinger- 
ode)  ;  the  spectator  must  have  his  back  to  the  sun  ;  and  the  air 
must  contain  some  vapor,  but  partially  distributed.  ColeriderS 
ascended  the  Brocken  on  the  Whitsunday  of  1799,  with  a  party  of 
English  students  from  Goettingen,  but  failed  to  see  the  phantom  ; 
afterwards  in  England  (and  under  the  three  same  conditions)  he  saw 
a  much  rarer  phenomenon,  which  he  described  in  the  following 
right  lines.  I  give  them  from  a  correct  copy  (the  apostrophe  in  the 
beginning  must  be  understood  as  addressed  to  an.  ideal  conception) : 

“  And  art  thou  nothing  ?  Such  thou  art  as  when 
The  woodman  winding  westward  up  the  glen 
At  wintry  dawn,  when  o’er  tie  sheep-traclc’s  maze 
The  viewless  snow-mist  weaves  a  glistening  haze, 

Sees  full  before  him,  gliding  without  tread, 

An  image  with  a  glory  round  its  head  ; 

This  shade  he  worships  for  its  golden  hues, 

And  makes  (not  knowing)  that  wiiich  he  pursues.” 

*  “  On  Whitsunday —  It  is  singular,  and  perhaps  owing  to  the 
temperature  and  weather  likely  to  prevail  in  that  early  part  of  sum 
Iter,  tnat  more  appearances  of  the  spectre  hive  been  witnessed  of 
Whilst  nday  than  on  any  other  day. 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER, 


219 


Look!  he  does  repeat  it;  but  the  driving  shower*  per¬ 
plex  the  images,  and  that,  perhaps,  it  is  which  gives 
him  the  air  of  one  who  acts  reluctantly  or  evasively. 
Now,  again,  the  sun  shines  more  brightly,  and  the  show- 
ers  have  swept  off  like  squadrons  of  cavalry  to  the  rear. 
We  will  try  him  again. 

Pluck  an  anemone,  one  of  these  many  anemones 
vhich  once  was  called  the  sorcerer’s  flower,*  and  bore 
a  part,  perhaps,  in  this  horrid  ritual  of  fear;  carry  it  to 
that  stone  which  mimics  the  outline  of  a  heathen  altar, 
and  once  was  called  the  sorcerer’s  altar  ;*  then  bend¬ 
ing  your  knee,  and  raising  your  right  hand  to  God 
say,  —  “Father,  which  art  in  heaven,  this  lovely  ane¬ 
mone,  that  once  glorified  the  worship  of  fear,  has 
travelled  back  into  thy  fold ;  this  altar,  which  once 
reeked  with  bloody  rites  to  Cortho,  has  long  been 
rebaptized  into  thy  holy  service.  The  darkness  is 
gone ;  the  cruelty  is  gone  which  the  darkness  bred ; 
the  moans  have  passed  away  which  the  victims  uttered; 
the  cloud  has  vanished  which  once  sate  continually  upon 
their  graves,  cloud  of  protestation  that  ascended  forever 
to  thy  throne  from  the  tears  of  the  defenceless,  and  the 
anger  of  the  just.  And  lo!  I  thy  servant,  with  this  dark 
phantom,  whom  for  one  hour  on  this  thy  festival  of  Pen¬ 
tecost  I  make  my  servant,  render  thee  united  worship 
;n  this  thy  recovered  temple.” 

*  “  The  sorcerer's  Jlower and  “  the  sorcerer's  altar."  —  These 
arc  names  still  clinging  to  the  anemcue  of  the  Brocken,  and  tc  at» 
i  tar-shaped  fragment  of  granite  near  one  of  the  summi  is  ;  and  it 
f  lot  doubted  that  they  both  connect  themselves,  through  links  ot 
Lo-.denf.  tradition,  with  the  gloomy  realities  of  Paganism,  when  the 
<?hole  Hartz  and  the  Brocken  formed  for  a  ^ery  long  time  the  las! 
asylum  to  a  ferocious  but  perishing  idolatry 


250 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CON/ESSIONS 


Look  now !  the  apparition  plucks  an  anemone,  and 
places  it  on  an  altar;  he  also  bends  his  knee,  he  also 
raises  his  right  hand  to  God.  Dumb  he  is ;  but  some* 
times  the  dumb  serve  God  acceptably.  Yet  still  it 
occurs  to  you,  that  perhaps  on  this  high  festival  of  the 
Christian  church  he  may  be  overruled  by  supernatural 
influence  into  confession  of  his  homage,  having  so 
often  been  made  to  bow  and  bend  his  knee  at  murder¬ 
ous  rites.  In  a  service  of  religion  he  may  be  timid 
Let  us  try  him,  therefore,  with  an  earthly  passion, 
where  he  will  have  no  bias  either  from  favor  or  from 
fear. 

If,  then,  once  in  childhood  you  suffered  an  affection 
that  was  ineffable,  —  if  once,  when  powerless  to  face  such 
an  enemy,  you  were  summoned  to  fight  with  the  tiger 
that  couches  within  the  separations  of  the  grave,  —  in 
that  case,  after  the  example  of  Judasa  (on  the  Roman 
coins), —  sitting  under  her  palm-tree  to  weep,  but  sit¬ 
ting  with  her  head  veiled,  —  do  you  also  veil  your 
head.  Many  years  are  passed  away  since  then ;  and 
you  were  a  little  ignorant  thing  at  that  time,  hardly 
above  six  years  old ;  or  perhaps  (if  you  durst  tell  all 
the  truth),  not  quite  so  much.  But  your  heart  was 
deeper  than  the  Danube;  and,  as  was  your  love,  so  was 
your  grief.  Many  years  are  gone  since  that  darkness 
settled  on  your  head;  many  summers,  many  winters; 
yet  still  its  shadows  wheel  round  upon  you  at  intervals, 
like  these  April  showers  upon  this  glory  of  bridal  June. 
Therefore  now,  on  this  dovelike  morning  of  Pentecost 
do  you  veil  your  head  like  Judasa  in  memory  of  tha 
transcendent  woe,  and  in  testimony  that,  indeed,  it  sur 
passed  all  utterance  of  words.  Immediately  you  se« 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


251 


tnat  me  apparition  of  the  Brocken  veils  his  head  aftet 
the  model  of  Judaea  weeping  under  her  palm-tree,  as  if 
he  also  had  a  human  heart,  and  that  he  also,  in  child 
hood,  having  suffered  an  affliction  which  was  ineffable, 
wished  by  these  mute  symbols  to  breathe  a  sigh  towards 
neaven  in  memory  of  that  affliction,  and  by  wray  of 
record,  though  many  a  year  after,  that  it  was  indeed 
unutterable  by  words. 

This  trial  is  decisive.  You  are  now  satisfied  that  the 
apparition  is  but  a  reflex  of  yourself;  and,  in  uttering 
your  secret  feelings  to  him ,  you  make  this  phantom  the 
dark  symbolic  mirror  for  reflection  to  the  daylight  what 
else  must  be  hidden  forever 

Such  a  relation  does  the  Dark  Interpreter,  whom 
immediately  the  reader  will  learn  to  know  as  an  intruder 
into  my  dreams,  bear  to  my  own  mind.  He  is  origi 
nally  a  mere  reflex  of  my  inner  nature.  But  as  the 
apparition  of  the  Brocken  sometimes  is  disturbed  by 
storms  or  by  driving  showers,  so  as  to  dissemble  his 
real  origin,  in  like  manner  the  Interpreter  sometimes 
swerves  out  of  my  orbit,  and  mixes  a  little  with  alien 
natures.  I  do  not  always  know  him  in  these  cases  aa 
my  own  parhelion.  What  he  says,  generally,  is  but 
that  which  I  have  said  in  daylight,  and  in  meditation 
deep  enough  to  sculpture  itself  on  my  heart.  Bat 
sometimes,  as  his  face  alters,  his  words  alter;  and  they 
do  not  always  seem  such  as  I  have  used,  or  could  use. 
No  man  can  account  for  ail  things  that  occur  in  dreams, 
Generally  I  believe  this,  —  that  he  is  a  faithful  represent¬ 
ative  of  myself,  but  he  also  is  at  times  subject  to  thfl 
%cti  n  of  the  good  VhantGsus ,  who  rules  in  dreams. 


£h2 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


Hailstone  choruses^  besides,  and  storms,  enter  m$ 
dreams.  Hailstones  and  fire  that  run  along  the  ground 
sleet  and  blinding  hurricanes,  revelations  of  glory  in 
sufferable  pursued  by  volleying  darkness,  —  these  are 
powers  able  to  disturb  any  features  that  originally  were 
but  shadow,  and  so  send  drifting  the  anchors  of  any 
vessel  that  rides  upon  deeps  so  treacherous  as  those  of 
dreams.  Understand,  however,  the  Interpreter  to  bear 
generally  the  office  of  a  tragic  chorus  at  Athens.  The 
Greek  chorus  is  perhaps  not  quite  understood  by  critics, 
any  more  than  the  Dark  Interpreter  by  myself.  But 
the  leading  function  of  both  must  be  supposed  this  —  not 
to  tell  you  anything  absolutely  new, — ■ that  was  done  by 
the  actors  in  the  drama ;  but  to  recall  you  to  your  own 
lurking  thoughts,  —  hidden  for  the  moment  or  imper¬ 
fectly  developed, — and  to  place  before  you,  in  immediate 
connection  with  groups  vanishing  too  quickly  for  any 
effort  of  meditation  on  your  own  part,  such  comment¬ 
aries,  prophetic  or  looking  back,  pointing  the  moral  or 
deciphering  the  mystery,  justifying  Providence,  or  miti¬ 
gating  the  fierceness  of  anguish,  as  would  or  might  have 
occurred  to  your  own  meditative  heart,  had  only  time 
been  allowed  for  its  motions. 

The  Interpreter  is  anchored  and  stationary  in  my 
dreams ;  but  great  storms  and  driving  mists  cause  him 
to  fluctuate  uncertainly,  or  even  to  retire  altogether 
like  his  gloomy  counterpart,  the  shy  phantom  of  the 
Brocken,  —  and  to  assume  new  features  or  strange 

*  ‘  Hailstone  choruses .” —  I  need  not  tell  any  lover  of  Hand® 
that  his  oratorio  of  “  Israel  ii>  Egypt  ”  contains  a  chorus  familiarl 
known  by  this  name.  The  words  are  :  “  And  he  gave  them  hai 
#tones  for  rain  ;  fire,  mingled  with  hail,  ran  along  upon  the  ground  * 


)J  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-E  /ER. 


263 


Matures,  as  in  dreams  always  there  is  a  powei  not  con¬ 
tented  with  reproduction,  but  which  absolutely  creates 
or  transforms.  This  dark  being  the  reader  will  see 
again  in  a  further  stage  of  my  opium  experience ;  and  I 
warn  him  that  he  will  not  always  be  found  sitting  inside 
my  dreams,  but  at  times  outside,  and  in  open  daylight 


FINALE  TO  PART  I.  —  SAVANNAH-LA-MAR,. 

God  smote  Savannah-la-mar,  and  in  one  night,  by 
earthquake,  removed  her,  with  all  her  towers  standing 
and  population  sleeping,  from  the  steadfast  foundations 
of  the  shore  to  the  coral  floors  of  ocean.  And  God 
said,  —  “Pompeii  did  I  bury  and  conceal  from  men 
through  seventeen  centuries :  this  city  I  will  bury,  but 
not  conceal.  She  shall  be  a  monument  to  men  of  mv 
mysterious  anger,  set  in  azure  light  through  genera¬ 
tions  to  come ;  for  I  will  enshrine  her  in  a  crystal  dome 
of  my  tropic  seas.”  This  city,  therefore,  like  a  mighty 
galleon  with  all  her  apparel  mounted,  streamers  flying, 
and  tackling  perfect,  seems  floating  along  the  noiseless 
depths  of  ocean ;  and  oftentimes  in  glassy  calms, 
through  the  translucid  atmosphere  of  water  that  now 
«tretches  like  an  air-woven  awning  above  the  silent 
mcampment,  mariners  from  every  clime  mok  down 
into  her  courts  and  terraces,  count  her  gates,  and 
number  the  spires  of  her  churches.  She  is  one  ample 
cemetery,  and  has  been  for  many  a  year;  but  in  the 
(nighty  calms  that  brood  for  weeks  over  tropic  latitudes 
he  fascinates  the  eye  with  a  Fata-Mor gana  revelation, 


254 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


as  of  human  life  still  subsisting  in  submarine  asylums 
Bacred  from  the  storms  that  torment  our  upper  air. 

Thither,  lured  by  the  loveliness  of  cerulean  depths 
by  the  peace  of  human  dwellings  privileged  from 
molestation,  by  the  gleam  of  marble  altars  sleeping 
in  everlasting  sanctity,  oftentimes  in  dreams  did  I  and 
the  Dark  Interpreter  cleave  the  watery  veil  that  divided 
us  from  her  streets.  We  looked  into  the  belfries, 
where  the  pendulous  bells  were  waiting  in  vain  for  the 
summons  which  should  awaken  their  marriage  peals ; 
together  we  touched  the  mighty  organ-keys,  that  sang 
no  jubilates  for  the  ear  of  Heaven,  that  sang  no  re¬ 
quiems  for  the  ear  of  human  sorrow;  together  we 
searched  the  silent  nurseries,  where  the  children  were 
all  asleep,  and  had  been  asleep  through  five  genera¬ 
tions.  “  They  are  waiting  for  the  heavenly  dawn,” 
whispered  the  Interpreter  to  himself :  “  and,  when  that 
comes,  the  bells  and  the  organs  will  utter  a  jubilate 
repeated  by  the  echoes  of  Paradise.”  Then,  turning 
to  me,  he  said,  —  “This  is  sad,  this  is  piteous;  but 
less  would  not  have  sufficed  for  the  purpose  of  God. 
Look  here.  Put  into  a  Roman  clepsydra  one  hundred 
drops  of  water;  let  these  run  out  as  the  sands  in  an 
hour-glass;  every  drop  measuring  the  hundredth  part 
of  a  second,  so  that  each  shall  represent  but  the  three- 
.lundred-and-sixty-thousandth  part  of  an  hour.  Now, 
count  the  drops  as  they  race  along;  and,  when  the 
hftieth  of  the  hundred  is  passing,  behold !  forty-nine 
*re  not,  because  already  they  have  perished  ;  and  fifty 
ire  not,  because  they  are  yet  to  come.  You  see 
therefore,  how  narrow,  how  incalculably  narrow,  is  the 
true  and  actual  present.  Of  that  time  which  we  cti 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


2d5 


lie  present,  hardly  a  hundredth  part  but  belongs  either 
to  a  past  which  has  fled,  or  to  a  future  which  is  still  on 
the  wing.  It  has  perished,  or  it  is  not  born.  It  was 
or  it  is  not.  Yet  even  this  approximation  to  the  truth 
is  infinitely  false.  For  again  subdivide  that  soktRiy 
drop,  which  only  was  found  to  represent  the  present 
into  a  ower  series  of  similar  fractions,  and  the  actu-a’ 
present  which  you  arrest  measures  now  but  the  thirty- 
sixth-millionth  of  an  hour ;  and  so  by  infinite  declen 
oions  the  true  and  very  present,  in  which  only  we  live 
and  enjoy,  will  vanish  into  a  mote  of  a  mote,  dis¬ 
tinguishable  only  by  a  heavenly  vision.  Therefore  the 
present,  which  only  man  possesses,  offers  less  capacity 
for  his  footing  than  the  slenderest  film  that  ever  spider 
twisted  from  her  womb.  Therefore,  also,  even  this 
incalculable  shadow  from  the  narrowest  pencil  of  moon¬ 
light  is  more  transitory  than  geometry  can  measure,  or 
thought  of  angel  can  overtake.  The  time  which  is 
contracts  into  a  mathematic  point ;  and  even  that  point 
perishes  a  thousand  times  before  we  can  utter  its  birth. 
All  is  finite  in  the  present ;  and  even  that  finite  is 
infinite  in  its  velocity  of  flight  towards  death.  But  in 
God  there  is  nothing  finite;  but  in  God  there  is  nothing 
transitory ;  but  in  God  there  can  be  nothing  that  tends  to 
death.  Therefore,  it  follows,  that  for  God  there  can  b« 
no  present.  The  future  is  the  present  of  God,  and  to 
ffre  future  it  is  that  he  sacrifices  the  human  present 
Therefore  it  is  that  he  works  by  earthquake.  There¬ 
fore  it  is  that  he  works  by  grief.  O,  deep  is  the  plough- 
.ng  of  earthquake  !  0,  deep  ”  —  [and  his  voice  swelled 

*ike  a  sanctus  rising  from  the  choir  of  a  cathedral]  — 
O,  deep  is  the  ploughing  of  grief!  But  oftentimes 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


£56 


less  would  not  suffice  for  the  agriculture  of  God.  Upor. 
a  night  of  earthquake  he  builds  a  thousand  years  of 
pleasant  habitations  for  man.  Upon  the  sorrow  of  an 
infant  he  raises  oftentimes  from  human  intellects  glori¬ 
ous  vintages  that  could  not  else  have  been.  Less  than 
these  fierce  ploughshares  would  not  have  stirred  the 
stubborn  soil.  The  one  is  needed  for  earth,  our  planet, 
—  for  earth  itself  as  the  dwelling-place  of  man;  but 
the  other  is  needed  yet  oftener  for  God’s  mightiest 
‘jistrument,  —  yes”  [and  he  looked  solemnly  at  myself] 
‘is  needed  for  the  mysterious  children  of  the  earth’* 


4N  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


5S57 


FART  II. 


VISION  OF  LIFE. 

The  Oxford  visions,  of  which  some  have  oeen  given, 
were  but  anticipations  necessary  to  illustrate  the  glimpsti 
opened  of  childhood  (as  being  its  reaction).  In  this 
Second  part,  returning  from  that  anticipation,  I  retrace 
an  abstract  of  my  boyish  and  youthful  days,  so  far  as 
they  furnished  or  exposed  the  germs  of  later  experiences 
in  worlds  more  shadowy. 

Upon  me,  as  upon  others  scattered  thinly  by  tens  and 
twenties  over  every  thousand  years,  fell  too  powerfully 
and  too  early  the  vision  of  life.  The  horror  of  life 
mixed  itself  already  in  earliest  youth  with  the  heavenly 
sweetness  of  life ;  that  grief,  which  one  in  a  hundred 
has  sensibility  enough  to  gather  from  the  sad  retrospect 
of  life  in  its  closing  stage,  for  me  shed  its  dews  as  a 
prelibation  upon  the  fountains  of  life  whilst  yet  spark¬ 
ling  to  the  morning  sun.  I  saw  from  afar  and  from 
before  what  I  was  to  see  from  behind.  Is  this  the 
description  of  an  early  youth  passed  in  the  shades  of 
gloom  ?  No ;  but  of  a  youth  passed  in  the  divinest 
happiness.  And  if  the  reader  has  (which  so  few  have) 
the  passion,  without  which  there  is  no  reading  of  the 
legend  and  superscription  upon  man’s  brow,  if  he  ia 
lot  (as  most  are  deafer  than  the  grave  to  every  dee p 
Bote  that  sighs  upwards  from  tne  Delphic  caves  of 
kumsn  life,  he  will  know  that  the  rapture  of  life  o . 

17 


£58 


A  SEQUEL  TO  TIIE  CONFESSIONS 


anything  which  by  approach  can  merit  that  name)  does 
not  arise,  unless  as  perfect  music  arises,  music  of 
Mozart  or  Beethoven,  by  the  confluence  of  the  mighty 
and  terrific  discords  with  the  subtile  concords.  Not  by 
contrast,  or  as  reciprocal  foils,  do  these  elements  act, 
which  is  the  feeble  conception  of  many,  but  by  union. 
They  are  the  sexual  forces  in  music :  “male  and  female 
ereated  he  them and  these  mighty  antagonists  do  not 
put  forth  their  hostilities  by  repulsion,  but  by  deepest 
attraction. 

As  “  in  to-day  already  walks  to-morrow,”  so  in  the 
past  experience  of  a  youthful  life  may  be  seen  dimly 
the  future.  The  collisions  with  alien  interests  or  hostile 
views,  of  a  child,  boy,  or  very  young  man,  so  insulated 
as  each  of  these  is  sure  to  be,  —  those  aspects  of  opposi¬ 
tion  which  such  a  person  can  occupy,  —  are  limited  by 
the  exceedingly  few  and  trivial  lines  of  connection 
along  which  he  is  able  to  radiate  any  essential  influence 
whatever  upon  the  fortunes  or  happiness  of  others 
Circumstances  may  magnify  his  importance  for  the 
moment ;  but,  after  all,,  any  cable  which  he  carries  out 
upon  other  vessels  is  easily  slipped  upon  a  feud  arising. 
Far  otherwise  is  the  state  of  relations  connecting  an 
adult  or  responsible  man  with  the  circles  around  him, 
as  life  advances.  The  net-work  of  these  relations  is  a 
thousand  times  moie  intricate,  the  jarring  of  these  intri¬ 
cate  relations  a  thousand  times  more  frequent,  and 
the  vibrations  a  thousand  times  harsher  which  these 
jarrings  diffuse.  This  truth  is  felt  beforehand  mis 
givingly  and  in  troubled  vision,  by  a  young  man  who 
stands  upon  the  threshold  of  manhood.  One  earliest 
tfistinct  of  fear  and  horror  would  darken  his  spirit,  if 


OF  AN  ENGIISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


25s 


?ou!d  be  revealed  to  itself  and  self-questioned  at  th« 
moment  of  birth :  a  second  instinct  of  the  same  nature 
would  again  pollute  that  tremulous  mirror,  if  the 
moment  were  as  punctually  marked  as  physical  birth  is 
marked,  which  dismisses  him  finally  upon  the  tides  of 
absolute  self-control.  A  dark  ocean  would  seem  the 
total  expanse  of  life  from  the  first ;  but  far  darker  and 
more  appalling  would  seem  that  interior  and  second 
chamber  of  the  ocean  which  called  him  away  forever 
from  the  direct  accountability  of  others.  Dreadful 
would  be  the  morning  which  should  say,  “  Be  thou  a 
human  child  incarnate but  more  dreadful  the  morning 
which  should  say,  “  Bear  thou  henceforth  the  sceptre  of 
thy  self-dominion  through  life,  and  the  passion  of  life  !  ” 
Yes,  dreadful  would  be  both ;  but  without  a  basis  of  the 
dreadful  there  is  no  perfect  rapture.  It  is  a  part  through 
the  sorrow  of  life,  growing  out  of  dark  events,  that  this 
basis  of  awe  and  solemn  darkness  slowly  accumulates. 
That  I  have  illustrated.  But,  as  life  expands,  it  is  more 
through  the  strife  which  besets  us,  strife  from  conflicting 
opinions,  positions,  passions,  interests,  that  the  funereal 
ground  settles  and  deposits  itself,  which  sends  upward 
the  dark  lustrous  brilliancy  through  the  jewel  of  life, 
else  revealing  a  pale  and  superficial  glitter.  Either  the 
human  being  must  suffer  and  struggle  as  the  price  of  a 
more  searching  vision,  or  his  gaze  must  be  shallow,  and 
without  intellectual  revelation. 

Through  accident  it  was  in  part,  and,  where  through 
Eto  accident  but  my  own  nature,  not  through  features  ot 
it  at  all  painful  to  recollect,  that  constantly  in  early  life 
'that  is,  from  boyish  days  until  eighteen,  when,  by  gcing 
to  Oxford,  practically  I  became  my  own  master)  3  ■wan 


260 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONI  ESS  ONS 


engaged  in  duels  of  fierce  continual  struggle,  with  some 
person  or  body  of  persons,  that  sought,  like  the  Roman 
retiarius,  to  throw  a  net  ol  deadly  coercion  or  constraint 
over  the  undoubted  rights  of  my  natural  freedom.  The 
steady  rebellion  upon  my  part  in  one  half  was  a  men* 
human  reaction  of  justifiable  indignation  ;  but  in  the 
ether  half  it  was  the  struggle  of  a  conscientious  nature, 
—  disdaining  to  feel  it  as  any  mere  right  or  discretional 
privilege, —  no,  feeling  it  as  the  noblest  of  duties  to 
resist,  though  it  should  be  mortally,  those  that  would 
have  enslaved  me,  and  to  retort  scorn  upon  those  that 
would  have  put  my  head  below  their  feet.  Too  much, 
even  in  later  life,  I  have  perceived,  in  men  that  pass  for 
good  men,  a  disposition  to  degrade  (and  if  possible  to 
degrade  through  self-degradation)  those  in  whom  unwil¬ 
lingly  they  feel  any  weight  of  oppression  to  them¬ 
selves,  by  commanding  qualities  of  intellect  or  character. 
They  respect  you :  they  are  compelled  to  do  so,  and 
they  hate  to  do  so.  Next,  therefore,  they  seek  to  throw 
off  the  sense  of  this  oppression,  and  to  take  vengeance 
for  it,  by  cooperating  with  any  unhappy  accidents  in 
your  life,  to  inflict  a  sense  of  humiliation  upon  you,  and 
(if  possible)  to  force  you  into  becoming  a  consenting 
party  to  that  humiliation.  O,  wherefore  is  it  that  those 
who  presume  to  call  themselves  the  “friends”  of  this 
man  or  that  woman  are  so  often  those,  above  all  others, 
whom  in  the  hour  of  death  that  man  or  woman  is  most 
dkely  to  salute  with  the  valediction  —  Would  God  1  had 
never  seen  your  face  ? 

In  citing  one  or  two  cases  of  these  early  struggles, 
tave  chiefly  in  view  the  effect  of  these  upon  my  subse* 
uert  visions  under  the  reign  of  opium.  And  this  indul 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


261 


gent  reflection  should  accompany  the  mature  reader 
through  all  such  records  of  boyish  inexperience.  A 
good-tempered  man,  who  is  also  acquainted  with  the 
world,  will  easily  evade,  without  needing  any  artifice  of 
servile  obsequiousness,  those  quarrels  which  an  upright 
simplicity,  jealous  of  its  own  rights,  and  unpractised  in 
the  science  of  work  address,  cannot  always  evsde 
without  some  loss  of  self-respect.  Suavity  in  this  man 
ner  may,  it  is  true,  be  reconciled  with  firmness  in  the 
matter;  but  not  easily  by  a  young  person  who  wants 
all  the  appropriate  resources  of  knowledge,  of  adroit 
and  guarded  language,  for  making  his  good  temper 
available.  Men  are  protected  from  insult  and  wrong, 
not  merely  by  their  own  skill,  but  also,  in  the  absence 
of  any  skill  at  all,  by  the  general  spirit  of  forbearance 
to  which  society  has  trained  all  those  whom  they  are 
likely  to  meet.  But  boys  meeting  with  no  such  for¬ 
bearance  or  training  in  other  boys,  must  sometimes  be 
thrown  upon  feuds  in  the  ratio  of  their  own  firmness- 
much  more  than  in  the  ratio  of  any  natural  pronene^a 
to  quarrel.  Such  a  subject,  however,  will  be  best  illus¬ 
trated  by  a  sketch  or  two  of  my  own  principal  feuds. 

The  first,  but  merely  transient  and  playful,  nor  worth 
noticing  at  all,  but  for  its  subsequent  resurrection  under 
other  and  awful  coloring  in  my  dreams,  grew  out  of  an 
imaginary  slight,  as  I  viewed  it,  put  upon  me  by  one  of 
mv  guardians  I  had  four  guardians;  and  the  one  of 
these  who  had  the  most  knowledge  and  talent  of  the 
whole — a  banker,  living  about  a  hundred  miles  from  my 
home  —  had  invited  rue,  whm  eleven  years  old,  to  hia 
nou<*e.  His  eldest  daughter,  perhaps  a  year  yoingei 
than  mvsod,  wore  at  that  time  upon  her  very  lovely 


1262 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONCESSIONS 


face  the  most  angelic  expression  of  charactei  and  tem* 
per  that  I  have  almost  ever  seen.  Naturally,  1  fell  in 
love  with  her.  It  seems  absurd  to  say  so ;  and  the 
more  so,  because  two  children  more  absolutely  innocent 
than  we  were  cannot  be  imagined,  neither  of  us  Laving 
ever  been  at  any  school ;  but  the  simple  truth  is,  that  in 
the  most  chivalrous  sense  I  was  in  love  with  her.  And 
the  proof  that  I  was  so  showed  itself  in  three  separate 
modes :  I  kissed  her  glove  on  any  rare  occasion  when  I 
found  it  lying  on  a  table ;  secondly,  I  looked  out  for 
some  excuse  to  be  jealous  of  her;  and,  thirdly,  I  did 
my  very  best  to  get  up  a  quarrel.  What  I  wanted  the 
quarrel  for  was  the  luxury  of  a  reconciliation  ;  a  hill 
cannot  be  had,  you  know,  without  going  to  the  expense 
cf  a  valley.  And  though  I  hated  the  very  thought  of  a 
moment’s  difference  with  so  truly  gentle  a  girl,  yet  how, 
but  through  such  a  purgatory,  cocld  one  win  the  para¬ 
dise  of  her  returning  smiles?  All  this,  however,  came 
to  nothing;  and  simply  because  she  positively  would 
not  quarrel.  And  the  jealous)  fell  through,  because 
there  was  no  decent  subject  for  such  a  passion,  unless 
it  had  settled  upon  an  old  music-master,  whom  lunacy 
itself  could  not  adopt  as  a  rival.  The  quarrel,  mean¬ 
time,  which  never  prospered  with  the  daughter,  silently 
kindled  on  my  part  towards  the  father.  His  offence  was 
tin 3.  At  dinner,  I  naturally  placed  myself  by  the  side 
of  M.,  and  it  gave  me  great  pleasure  to  touch  her  hand 
it  intervals.  As  M.  was  my  cousin  though  twice  01 
sven  three  times  removed,  I  did  r.ot  feel  it  taking  too 
great  a  liberty  in  this  little  act  of  tenderness.  No  mattei 
if  three  thousand  times  removed,  I  said,  my  cousin  is 
my  cousin ;  nor  had  I  very  much  designed  to  conceal  the 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


263 


act ;  or  if  so,  "ather  on  her  account  than  my  own.  One 
evening,  however,  papa  observed  my  manoeuvre  Did 
he  seem  displeased?  Not  at  all;  he  even  conde 
scended  to  smile.  But  the  next  day  he  placed  iVI.  on 
the  side  opposite  to  myself.  In  one  respect  this  was 
really  an  improvement,  because  it  gave  me  a  better 
view  of  my  cousin’s  sweet  countenance.  But  then 
there  was  the  loss  of  the  hand  to  be  considered  and 
secondly  there  was  the  affront.  It  was  clear  that  ven¬ 
geance  must  be  had.  Now,  there  was  but  one  thing  in 
this  world  that  I  could  do  even  decently  ;  but  that  1 
could  do  admirably.  This  was  writing  Latin  hexame¬ 
ters.  Juvenal  —  though  it  was  not  very  much  of  him 
that  I  had  then  read  —  seemed  to  me  a  divine  model. 
The  inspiration  of  wrath  spoke  through  him  as  through 
a  Hebrew  prophet.  The  same  inspiration  spoke  now  in 
me.  Facit  indignatio  versum ,  said  Juvenal.  And  it 
must  be  owned  that  indignation  has  never  made  such 
good  verses  since  as  she  did  in  that  day.  But  still, 
even  to  me,  this  agile  passion  proved  a  Muse  of  genia' 
inspiration  for  a  couple  of  paragraphs  ;  and  one  line 
will  mention  as  worthy  to  have  taken  its  place  in 
Juvenal  himself.  I  say  this  without  scruple,  having 
uot  a  shadow  of  vanity,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  a  shadow 
of  false  modesty  connected  with  such  boyish  accomplish¬ 
ments.  The  poem  opened  thus  : 

Te  nemis  austerum  sacrae  qui  fcedera  mens* 

Diruis,  insector  Satyrae  reboante  flagello.  ” 

But  the  line  which  I  insist  upon  as  of  Roman  strength 
was  the  closing  one  of  the  next  sentence.  The  genera 
*f!ect  of  the  sentiment  was,  that  my  clamorous  wrath 


264 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


should  make  its  way  even  into  ears  that  were  pats* 
hearing : 

“ - mea  sceva  quere.a 

Auribus  insidet  ceratis,  auribus  etsi 
Non  audituris  hyberni  node  procellam.” 

The  power,  however,  which  inflated  my  verse,  soon 
collapsed ;  having  been  soothed,  from  the  very  first,  by 
finding,  that  except  in  this  one  instance  at  the  dinner- 
table,  which  probably  had  been  viewed  as  an  indecorum, 
no  further  restraint,  of  any  kind  whatever,  was  medi¬ 
tated  upon  my  intercourse  with  M.  Besides,  it  was  too 
painful  to  lock  up  good  verses  in  one’s  own  solitary 
breast.  Yet  how  could  I  shock  the  sweet  filial  heart 
of  my  cousin  by  a  fierce  lampoon  or  stylites  against 
ner  father,  had  Latin  even  figured  amongst  her  accom¬ 
plishments?  Then  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  verses 
might  be  shown  to  the  father.  But  was  there  not 
something  treacherous  in  gaining  a  man’s  approbation 
under  a  mask  to  a  satire  upon  himself?  Or  would  he 
have  always  understood  me?  For  one  person,  a  year 
after,  took  the  sacrcs  menses  (by  which  I  had  meant  the 
sanctities  of  hospitality)  to  mean  the  sacramental  ta¬ 
ble.  And  on  consideration,  I  began  to  suspect  that 
many  people  would  pronounce  myself  the  party  who 
had  violated  the  holy  ties  of  hospitality,  which  are 
equally  binding  on  guest  as  on  host.  Indolence,  which 
sometimes  comes  in  aid  of  good  impulses  as  well  as 
uad,  favored  these  relenting  thoughts.  The  society 
of  HI.  did  still  more  to  wean  me  from  further  efforts 
satire;  and,  finally,  my  Latin  poem  remained 
orso  But,  upon  the  whole,  my  guardian  had  a  nar¬ 
row  escape  of  descending  to  posterity  in  a  disadvan 


OF  AH  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


265 


tegeous  light,  had  he  rolled  down  to  it  through  my 
aexameters. 

Here  was  a  case  of  merely  playful  feud.  But  the 
same  talent  of  Latin  verses  soon  after  connected  me  with 
a  real  feud,  that  harassed  my  mind  more  than  would  be 
supposed,  and  precisely  by  this  agency,  namely,  that 
arrayed  one  set  of  feelings  against  another.  It  divided 
my  mind,  as  by  domestic  feud,  against  itself.  About  a 
year  after  returning  from  the  visit  to  my  guardian’s, 
and  when  I  must  have  been  nearly  completing  my 
twelfth  year,  I  was  sent  to  a  great  public  school. 
Every  man  has  reason  to  rejoice  who  enjoys  so  great 
an  advantage.  I  condemned,  and  do  condemn,  the 
practice  of  sometimes  sending  out  into  such  stormy 
exposures  those  who  are  as  yet  too  young,  too  de¬ 
pendent  on  female  gentleness,  and  endowed  with  sensi¬ 
bilities  too  exquisite.  But  at  nine  or  ten  the  masculine 
energies  of  the  character  are  beginning  to  be  developed ; 
or  if  not,  no  discipline  will  better  aid  in  their  develop¬ 
ment  than  the  bracing  intercourse  of  a  great  English 
classical  school.  Even  the  selfish  are  forced  into 
accommodating  themselves  to  a  public  standard  of 
generosity,  and  the  effeminate  into  conforming  to  a  rule 
of  manliness.  I  was  myself  at  two  public  schools  ;  and 
i  think  with  gratitude  of  the  benefit  which  I  reaped 
from  both  ;  as  also  I  think  with  gratitude  cf  the  upright 
guardian  in  whose  quiet  household  I  learned  Latin  so 
effectually .  But  the  small  private  schools  which  I 
witnessed  for  brief  periods,  containing  thirty  to  forty 
x>ys,  were  models  of  ignoW?  manners  as  respected 
>ome  part  of  the  juniors,  and  of  favoritism  amongst 
8ie  masters.  Nowhere  is  the  sublimity  of  public  jus* 


m 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


lice  so  broadly  exemplified  as  in  an  English  school 
There  is  riot  in  the  universe  such  an  areopagus  for  fan 
play,  and  abhorrence  of  all  crooked  ways,  as  an  Eng¬ 
lish  mob,  or  one  of  the  English  time-honored  public 
schools.  But  my  own  first  introduction  to  such  an 
establishment  was  under  peculiar  and  contradictory  cir¬ 
cumstances.  When  my  “  rating,”  or  graduation  in  the 
school,  was  to  be  settled,  naturally  my  altitude  (to 
speak  astronomically)  was  taken  by  the  proficiency  in 
Greek.  But  I  could  then  barely  construe  books  so 
easy  as  the  Greek  Testament  and  the  Iliad.  This  was 
considered  quite  well  enough  for  my  age ;  but  still  it 
caused  me  to  be  placed  three  steps  below  the  highest 
rank  in  the  school.  Within  one  week,  however,  my 
talent  for  Latin  verses,  which  had  by  this  time  gathered 
strength  and  expansion,  became  known.  I  was  honored 
as  never  was  man  or  boy  since  Mordecai  the  Jew.  Not 
properly  belonging  to  the  flock  of  the  head  master,  but 
to  the  leading  section  of  the  second,  I  was  now 
weekly  paraded  for  distinction  at  the  supreme  tribu 
nal  of  the  school ;  out  of  which  at  first  grew  nothing  but 
a  sunshine  of  approbation  delightful  to  my  heart,  still 
brooding  upon  solitude.  Within  six  weeks  this  had 
changed.  The  approbation,  indeed,  continued,  and  the 
pubiic  testimony  of  it.  Neither  would  there,  in  the 
ordinary  course,  have  been  any  painful  reaction  from 
jealousy,  or  fretful  resistance  to  the  soundness  of  my 
pretensions ;  since  it  was  sufficiently  known  to  some  of 
my  schoffi-fellows,  that  I,  who  had  no  male  relatives  but 
military  men,  and  those  in  India,  could  not  have  bene¬ 
fited  by  any  clandestine  am.  But,  unhappily  the  head 
master  was  at  that  time  dissatisfied  with  some  points  if 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


2m 


the  progress  of  his  Lead  form;  and,  as  it  soon  appeared; 
was  continually  throwing  in  their  teeth  the  brilliancy 
of  my  verses  at  twelve,  by  comparison  with  theirs  at 
seventeen,  eighteen,  and  nineteen.  I  had  observed  Lira 
sometimes  pointing  to  myself ;  and  was  perplexed  at 
seeing  this  gesture  followed  oy  gloomy  looks,  and  what 
French  reporters  call  “  sensation,”  in  these  young  men, 
whom  naturally  I  viewed  with  awe  as  my  leaders,  boys 
that  were  called  young  men,  men  that  were  reading 
Sophocles  —  (a  name  that  carried  with  it  the  sound  of 
something  seraphic  to  my  ears), — and  who  never  had 
vouchsafed  to  waste  a  word  on  such  a  child  as  myself. 
The  day  was  come,  however,  when  all  that  would  bo 
changed.  One  of  these  leaders  strode  up  to  me  in 
the  public  play-grounds,  and  delivering  a  blow  on  my 
shoulder,  which  was  not  intended  to  hurt  me,  but  as  a 
mere  formula  of  introduction,  asked  me  “What  the 
d — 1  I  meant  by  bolting  out  of  the  course,  and  annoying 
other  people  in  that  manner?  Were  other  people  to 
nave  no  rest  for  me  and  my  verses,  which,  after  all, 
were  horribly  bad?”  There  might  have  been  some 
difficulty  in  returning  an  answer  to  this  address,  but 
tone  was  required.  I  was  briefly  admonished  to  see 
that  1  wrote  worse  for  the  future,  or  else  — — .  At  this 
aposiopesis ,  I  looked  inquiringly  at  the  speaker,  and  he 
filled  up  the  chasm  by  saying  that  he  would  “  annihi¬ 
late  ”  me.  Could  any  person  fail  to  be  aghast  at  such 
4  demand  ?  I  was  to  write  worse  than  my  own  stand¬ 
ard,  which,  by  his  account  of  my  verses,  must  be  diffi¬ 
cult;  and  1  was  to  write  worse  than  nimself,  which 
night  be  impossible.  My  feelings  revolted,  it  may  be 
opposed  again  q  so  arrogant  a  demand,  unless  it  had 


168  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

been  far  otherwise  expressed ;  and  on  the  next  occasioa 
For  sending  up  verses,  so  far  from  attending  to  the  order; 
issued,  1  double-shotted  my  guns ;  double  applause  de¬ 
scended  on  myself;  but  I  remarked,  with  some  awe 
though  not  repenting  of  what  I  had  done,  that  dout/ie 
confusion  seemed  to  agitate  the  ranks  of  my  enemies. 
Amongst  them  loomed  out  in  the  distance  my  “  annihi¬ 
lating”  friend,  who  shook  his  huge  fist  at  me,  but 
with  something  like  a  grim  smile  about  his  eyes.  He 
took  an  early  opportunity  of  paying  his  respects  to 
me,  saying,  “  You  little  devil,  do  you  call  this  writing 
your  worst  ?  ”  “  No,”  I  replied  ;  “  I  call  it  writing  my 

best.”  The  annihilator,  as  it  turned  out,  was  really 
i  good-natured  young  man ;  but  he  soon  went  off  to 
Cambridge ;  and  with  the  rest,  or  some  of  them,  1 
continued  to  wage  war  for  nearly  a  year.  And  yet, 
for  a  word  spoken  with  kindness,  I  would  have  resigned 
the  peacock’s  feather  in  my  cap  as  the  merest  of  bau¬ 
bles.  Undoubtedly  praise  sounded  sweet  in  my  ears 
also.  But  that  was  nothing  Dy  comparison  with  what, 
stood  on  the  other  side.  I  detested  distinctions  that 
were  connected  with  mortification  to  others.  And,  even 
if  I  could  have  got  over  that ,  the  eternal  feud  fretted 
*nd  tormented  my  nature.  Love,  that  once  in  child* 
hood  had  been  so  mere  a  necessity  to  me,  that  had  long 
been  a  mere  reflected  ray  from  a  departed  sunset. 
But  peace,  and  freedom  from  strife,  if  love  were  no 
anger  possible  (as  so  rarely  it  is  in  this  world),  was 
lie  absolute  necessity  of  my  heart.  To  contend  with 
*omebody  was  still  my  fate ;  how  to  escape  the  con. 
tentior.  I  could  not  see;  and  yet  for  itself,  and  the 
deadly  passions  into  which  it  forced  me,  I  hated  ano 


OF  AI?  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


269 


oathed  it  more  than  death.  It  added  to  the  distraction 
*nd  internal  leud  ot  my  own  mind,  that  I  could  not 
fti 'together  condemn  the  upper  boys.  I  was  made  a 
handle  of  humiliation  to  them.  And,  in  the  mean  time, 
if  I  had  an  advantage  in  one  accomplishment,  which  is 
all  a  matte.'  of  accident,  or  peculiar  taste  and  feeling, 
they,  on  the  other  hand,  had  a  great  advantage  over  me 
in  the  more  elaborate  difficulties  of  Greek,  and  of  choral 
Greek  poetry.  I  could  not  altogether  wonder  at  their 
hatred  of  myself.  Yet  still,  as  they  had  chosen  to 
adopt  this  mode  of  conflict  with  me,  I  did  not  feel  that  1 
had  any  choice  but  to  resist.  The  contest  was  termi¬ 
nated  for  me  by  my  removal  from  the  school,  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  a  very  threatening  illness  affecting  my  head ; 
but  it  lasted  nearly  a  year,  and  it  did  not  close  before 
several  amongst  my  public  enemies  had  become  my 
private  friends.  They  were  much  older,  but  they  invited 
me  to  the  houses  of  their  friends,  and  showed  me  a 
respect  which  deeply  affected  me,  —  this  respect  having 
more  reference,  apparently,  to  the  firmness  I  had  exhib¬ 
ited,  than  to  the  splendor  of  my  verses.  And,  indeed, 
these  had  rather  drooped,  from  a  natural  accident ; 
Bevernl  persons  of  my  own  class  had  formed  the 
practice  of  asking  me  to  write  verses  for  them.  1 
could  not  refuse.  But,  as  the  subjects  given  out  we 
the  same  for  all  of  us,  it  was  not  possible  to  takr. 
many  crops  off  the  ground  without  starving  the  quality 
of  all. 

Two  years  ani  a  half  from  this  time,  I  was  again  at 
i  public  school  of  ancient  foundation.  Now  I  was 
Siyself  one  of  the  three  who  lormed  .he  highest  class. 
How  I  myself  v as  famiuar  with  Sophocles,  who  once 


270 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


had  been  so  shadowy  a  name  in  my  ear.  But,  strang* 
to  say,  now,  in  my  sixteenth  year,  I  cared  nothing  at 
all  for  the  glory  of  Latin  verse.  All  the  business  of 
school  was  light  and  trivial  in  my  eyes.  Costing  me 
not  an  effort,  it  could  not  engage  any  part  of  my 
attention  ;  that  was  now  swallowed  up  altogether  by  the 
literature  of  my  native  land.  I  still  reverenced  the 
Grecian  drama,  as  always  I  must.  But  else  I  cared 
little  then  for  classical  pursuits.  A  deeper  spell  had 
mastered  me  ;  and  I  lived  only  in  those  bowers  where 
deeper  passions  spoke. 

Here,  however,  it  was  that  began  another  and  more 
important  struggle.  I  was  drawing  near  to  seventeen, 
and,  in  a  year  after  that ,  would  arrive  the  usual  time 
for  going  to  Oxford.  To  Oxford  my  guardians  made 
no  objection ;  and  they  readily  agreed  to  make  the 
allowance  then  universally  regarded  as  the  minimum 
for  an  Oxford  student,  namely,  £200  per  annum.  But 
they  insisted,  as  a  previous  condition,  that  I  should 
make  a  positive  and  definite  choice  of  a  profession 
Now,  I  was  well  aware,  that,  if  I  did  make  such  a 
choice,  no  law  existed,  nor  could  any  obligation  be 
created  through  deeds  or  signature,  by  which  I  could 
rnally  be  compelled  into  keeping  my  engagement.  But 
;nis  evasion  did  not  suit  me.  Here,  again,  I  felt  indig¬ 
nantly  that  the  principle  of  the  attempt  was  unjust. 
The  object  was  certainly  to  do  me  service  by  saving 
money,  since,  if  I  selected  the  bar  as  my  profession, 
it  was  contended  by  some  persons  (misinformed  how¬ 
ever),  that  not  Oxford,  but  a  special  pleaders  office, 
would  be  my  proper  destination  ;  but  I  cared  not  fo. 
arguments  of  that  sort.  Oxford  I  was  determined  U 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


271 


make  my  home.;  and  also  to  bear  my  future  ccursa 
utterly  untrammelled  by  promises  that  I  might  repent 
Soon  came  the  catastrophe  of  this  struggle.  A  little 
before  my  seventeenth  birth-day,  I  walked  ofli  one 
lovely  summer  morning,  to  North  Wales,  rambled  there 
for  months,  and,  finally,  under  some  obscure  hopes  of 
raising  money  on  my  personal  security,  I  werjf  up  to 
London.  Now  I  was  in  my  eighteenth  year,  Lnd 
during  this  period  it  was  that  I  passed  through  that 
trial  of  severe  distress,  of  which  I  gave  some  account 
in  my  former  Confessions.  Having  a  motive,  however, 
for  glancing  backwards  briefly  at  that  period  in  the 
present  series,  I  will  do  so  at  this  point. 

I  saw  in  one  journal  an  insinuation  that  the  incidents 
in  the  'preliminary  narrative  were  possibly  without 
foundation.  To  such  an  expression  of  mere  gratuitous 
malignity,  as  it  happened  to  be  supported  by  no  one 
argument,  except  a  remark,  apparently  absurd,  but 
certainly  false,  I  did  not  condescend  to  answer.  In 
reality,  the  possibility  had  never  occurred  to  me  that 
any  person  of  judgment  would  seriously  suspect  me  of 
taking  liberties  with  that  part  of  the  work,  since, 
though,  no  one  of  the  parties  concerned  but  myself 
Btood  in  so  central  a  position  to  the  circumstances  as 
♦o  be  acquainted  with  all  of  them,  many  were  acquainted 
with  each  separate  section  of  the  memoir.  Relays 
witnesses  might  have  been  summoned  to  mount 
guard,  as  it  were,  upon  the  accuracy  of  each  particular 
\n  the  whole  succession  of  incidents ;  and  some  of 
these  people  had  an  interest,  more  or  Jess  strong,  in 
wqiosing  any  deviation  froin  the  strictest  letter  of  the 
truth,  had  it  been  in  their  power  to  do  so  It  is  do^ 


tvt 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


fwenty-two  years  since  I  saw  the  objection  here  alluded 
to ,  and  in  saying  that  I  did  not  condescend  ta 
notice  it,  the  reader  mast  not  find  any  reason  fol 
taxing  me  with  a  blamable  haughtiness.  But  ev?ry 
man  is  entitled  to  be  haughty  when  his  veracity  is 
impeached;  and  stil  more  when  it  is  impeached  by  a 
dishoi  est  objection,  or,  if  not  that,  by  an  objection 
which  argues  a  carelessness  of  attention  almost  amount- 
mg  to  dishonesty,  in  a  case  where  it  was  meant  to 
-ustain  an  imputation  of  falsehood.  Let  a  man  read 
carelessly,  if  he  will,  but  not  where  he  is  meaning  t" 
use  his  reading  for  a  purpose  of  wounding  another  man’s 
honor.  Having  thus,  by  twenty-two  years’  silence, 
sufficiently  expressed  my  contempt  for  the  slander,* 
1  now  feel  myself  at  liberty  to  draw  it  into  notice, 
for  the  sake,  inter  alia,  of  showing  in  how  rash  a  spirit 
malignity  often  works.  In  the  preliminary  account 
of  certain  boyish  adventures  which  had  exposed  me 
to  suffering  of  a  kind  not  commonly  incident  to  persons 
in  my  station  in  life,  and  leaving  behind  a  temptation 
to  the  use  of  opium  under  certain  arrears  of  weakness 
had  occasion  to  notice  a  disreputable  attorney  in 
London,  who  showed  me  some  attentions,  partly  on  my 


*  Being  constantly  almost  an  absentee  from  London,  and  vc-vy 
often  from  other  great  cities,  so  as  to  command  oftentimes  no  favor¬ 
able  opportunities  for  overlooking  the  great  mass  of  public  journals, 
It  is  possible  enough  that  other  slanders  of  the  same  tenor  may 
be  re  existed.  I  speak  of  what  met  my  o  vn  eye,  or  was  accident 
tily  reported  to  me  ;  but,  in  fact,  all  of  us  are  exposed  to  this  evil 
of  calumnies  lurking  unseen,  for  no  degree  of  energy,  and  n« 
•Xiess  of  disposable  time,  would  enable  any  man  to  exercise  thi/ 
•oit  ot  vigilant  police  over  all  journals.  Better,  therefore,  tran 
tulllv  to  leave  all  such  malice  to  confound  itself. 


O  A  IS  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


272 


»wn  account  as-  a  boy  of  some  expectations,  but  much 
aior<:  with  the  purpose  of  fastening  his  professional 

grappling-hooks  upon  the  young  Earl  of  A - t,41  my 

former  companion,  and  my  present  correspondent.  This 
man’s  house  was  slightly  described,  and,  with  more 
minuteness,  I  had  exposed  some  interesting  traits  in 
his  household  economy.  A  question,  therefore,  natu¬ 
rally  arose  in  several  people’s  curiosity  —  Where  was 
this  house  situated?  and  the  more  so  because  I  had 
pointed  a  renewed  attention  to  it  by  saying,  that  on 
that  very  evening  (namely,  the  evening  on  wdiich  that 
particular  page  of  the  Confessions  was  wrritten)  I  had 
visited  the  street,  looked  up  at  the  windows,  and, 
instead  of  the  gloomy  desolation  reigning  there  when 
myself  and  a  little  girl  wTere  the  sole  nightly  tenants,  — 
sleeping,  in  fact  (poor  freezing  creatures  that  we  both 
were),  on  the  floor  of  the  attorney’s  lawr-chamber,  and 
making  a  pillow  out  of  his  infernal  parchments,  —  I  had 
seen,  with  pleasure,  the  evidences  of  comfort,  respect¬ 
ability,  and  domestic  animation,  in  the  lights  and  stir 
prevailing  through  different  stories  of  the  house.  Upon 
this,  the  upright  critic  told  his  readers  that  I  had 
described  the  house  as  standing  in  Oxford-street,  and 
then  appealed  to  their  own  knowdedge  of  that  street 
whether  such  a  house  could  be  so  situated.  Why  not 
- — he  neglected  to  tell  us.  The  houses  at  the  east  erd 
of  Oxford -street  are  certainly  of  too  small  an  orde** 
ro  meet  my  account  of  the  attorney’s  house ;  but  why 
i-hould  it  be  at  the  °ast  end  ?  Oxford-street  is  a  mile 
and  a  quarter  long,  and,  being  built  continuously  on  both 
Elies,  finds  room  for  houses  of  classes.  Mean¬ 

time  it  happens  that,  although  the  true  house  wai 

18 


274  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

most  obscurely  indicated,  any  house  whatever  m  0x« 
ford-street  was  most  luminously  excluded.  In  all  the 
immensity  of  London  there  was  but  one  single  street 
that  could  be  challenged  by  an  attentive  reader  of  the 
Confessions  as  peremptorily  not  the  street  of  the  attor« 
ney’s  house,  and  that  one  was  Oxford-street ;  for,  in 
speaking  of  my  own  renewed  acquaintance  with  the 
outside  of  this  house,  I  used  some  expression  implying 
that,  in  order  to  make  such  a  visit  of  reconnoissance, 
l  had  turned  aside  from  Oxford-street.  The  matter 
is  a  perfect  trifle  in  itself,  but  it  is  no  trifle  in  a 
question  affecting  a  writer’s  accuracy.  If  in  a  thing 
so  absolutely  impossible  to  be  forgotten  as  the  true 
situation  of  a  house  painfully  memorable  to  a  man’s 
feelings,  from  being  the  scene  of  boyish  distresses  the 
most  exquisite,  nights  passed  in  the  misery  of  cold, 
and  hunger  preying  upon  him,  both  night  and  day,  in  a 
degree  which  very  many  would  not  have  survived,  — 
be,  when  retracing  his  school-boy  annals,  could  have 
thown  indecision,  even  far  more  dreaded  inaccuracy, 
m  identifying  the  house,  —  not  one  syllable  after  that, 
which  he  could  have  said  on  any  other  subject, 
would  have  won  any  confidence,  or  deserved  any, 
trom  a  judicious  reader.  I  may  now  mention  —  the 
Herod  being  dead  whose  persecutions  I  had  reason  to 
fear  —  that  the  house  in  question  stands  in  Greek 
street  on  the  west,  and  is  the  house  on  that  side  near¬ 
est  to  Soho-square,  but  without  looking  into  the 
square.  This  it  was  hardly  safe  to  mention  at  the 
date  of  the  published  Confessions.  It  was  my  private 
opinion,  indeed,  that  there  were  probably  twenty-fire 
chances  to  one  in  favor  of  my  friend  the  attorney 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-E;  .TER.  27t) 

hav.ng  been  by  that  time  hanged.  But  then  thia 
argued  inversely;  one  chance  to  twenty-five  that  my 
friend  might  be  changed,  and  knocking  about  the 
streets  of  London ;  in  which  case  it  would  have  been 
a  perfect  god-send  to  him  that  here  lay  an  opening  (of 
my  contrivance,  not  his)  for  requesting  the  opinion  of 
a  jury  on  the  amount  of  solatium  due  to  his  wounded 
feelings  in  an  action  on  the  passage  in  the  Confessions. 
To  have  indicated  even  the  street  would  have  been 
enough ;  because  there  could  surely  be  but  one  such 
Grecian  in  Greek-street,  or  but  one  that  realized  the 
other  conditions  of  the  unknown  quantity.  There  was 
also  a  separate  danger  not  absolutely  so  laughable  as 
it  sounds.  Me  there  was  little  chance  that  the  attor¬ 
ney  should  meet ;  but  my  book  he  might  easily  have 
met  (supposing  always  that  the  warrant  of  Sus.  pe> 
coll,  had  not  yet  on  his  account  travelled  down  to 
Newgate).  For  he  was  literary;  admired  literature; 
and,  as  a  lawyer,  he  wrote  on  some  subjects  fluently  ; 
might  he  not  publish  his  Confessions  ?  Or,  which 
would  be  worse,  a  supplement  to  mine,  printed  so  as 
exactly  to  match  ?  In  which  case  I  should  have  had 
the  same  affliction  that  Gibbon  the  historian  dreaded  so 
much,  namely,  that  of  seeing  a  refutation  of  himself,  and 
his  own  answer  to  the  refutation,  all  bound  up  in  one 
and  the  same  self-combating  volume.  Besides,  he 
would  have  cross-examined  me  before  the  public,  in 
Old  Bailey  style  ;  no  story,  tne  most  straightforwaid 
tnat  ever  was  told,  could  be  sure  to  stand  that.  And 
nay  readers  might  be  left  in  a  state  of  painful  douV* 
whether  he  might  not,  after  all,  nave  Deen  a  model  of 
lufifering  innocence  —  I  (to  say  the  kindest  thing  poa 


e:6 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


Bible)  plagued  with  the  natural  treacheries  of  -  school¬ 
boy's  memory.  In  taking  leave  of  this  case  and  th« 
remembrances  connected  with  it,  let  me  say  that 
although  really  believing  in  the  probability  of  the 
attorney’s  having  at  least  found  his  way  to  Australia 
I  had  no  satisfaction  in  thinking  of  that  result.  I  kne^ 
my  frbnd  to  be  the  very  perfection  of  a  scamp.  And 
in  the  running  account  between  us  (I  mean,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  as  to  money),  the  balance  could  not  be 
in  his  favor;  since  I,  on  receiving  a  sum  of  money 
(considerable  in  the  eyes  of  us  both),  had  transferred 
pretty  nearly  the  whole  of  it  to  him ,  for  the  purpose 
ostensibly  held  out  to  me  (but  of  course  a  hoax)  of 
purchasing  certain  law  “stamps;”  for  he  was  then 
pursuing  a  diplomatic  correspondence  with  various 
Jews  who  lent  money  to  young  heirs,  in  some  trifling 
proportion  on  my  own  insignificant  account,  but  much 

more  truly  on  the  account  of  Lord  A - 1,  my  young 

friend.  On  the  other  side,  he  had  given  to  me  sim¬ 
ply  the  relics  of  his  breakfast-table,  which  itself  was 
hardly  more  than  a  relic.  But  in  this  he  was  not  to 
blame.  He  could  not  give  to  me  what  he  had  not  for 
himself,  nor  sometimes  for  the  poor  starving  child 
whom  I  now  suppose  to  have  been  his  illegitimate 
Laughter.  So  desperate  was  the  running  fight,  yard¬ 
arm  to  yard-arm,  which  he  maintained  with  creditors 
fierce  as  famine  and  hungry  as  the  grave, — so  deep 
also  was  his  horror  (I  know  not  for  wdiich  of  the  various 
reasons  supposable)  against  falling  into  a  piison,  —  that 
lie  seldom  ventured  to  sleep  twice  successively  in  the 
^me  house.  That  expense  of  itself  must  have  presses 
seaviiy  in  Londc  n,  where  you  pay  half  a  crown  at  leas* 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


277 


for  a  bed  that  wou.l  cost  only  a  shilling  in  the  pro?- 
inces.  In  the  midst  of  his  knaveries,  and,  what  were 
even  more  shocking  to  my  remembrance,  his  c cre¬ 
dential  discoveries  in  his  rambling  conversations  of 
knavish  designs  (not  always  pecuniary),  there  was  a 
light  of  wandering  misery  in  his  eye,  at  times,  which 
affected  me  afterwards  at  intervals,  when  I  recailed  it 
in  the  radiant  happiness  of  nineteen,  and  amidst  th© 
so.emn  tranquillities  of  Oxford.  That  of  itself  was 
interesting;  the  man  wTas  worse  by  far  than  he  had 
been  meant  to  be ;  he  had  not  the  mind  that  reconciles 
itself  to  evil.  Besides,  he  respected  scholarship,  which 
appeared  by  the  deference  he  generally  showTed  to 
myself,  then  about  seventeen  ;  he  had  an  interest  in 
literature,  —  that  argues  something  good ;  and  was 
pleased  at  any  time,  or  even  cheerful,  when  I  turned 
the  conversation  upon  books  ;  nay,  he  seemed  touched 
wTith  emotion  when  I  quoted  some  sentiment  noble  and 
impassioned  from  one  of  the  great  poets,  and  would 
ask  me  to  repeat  it.  He  would  have  been  a  man  of 
memorable  energy,  and  for  good  purposes,  had  it  not 
6een  for  his  agony  of  conflict  with  pecuniary  embar¬ 
rassments.  These  probably  had  commenced  in  some 
fatal  compliance  with  temptation  arising  out  of  funds 
confided  to  him  by  a  client.  Perhaps  he  had  gained 
fifty  guineas  for  a  moment  of  necessity,  and  had  sacri¬ 
ficed  for  that  trifle  only  the  serenity  and  the  comfort 
of  a  life.  Feelings  of  relenting  kindness  it  was  noS 
in  my  nature  to  refuse  in  sucn  a  case ;  and  I  wished 
to  *  *  #  *  #  * 

But  I  never  succeeded  in  tracing  his  steps  through  the 
wilderness  of  London  until  some  years  back,  when  1 


S78  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

ascertained  that  he  was  dead.  Generally  speaking,  tht 
few  people  whom  I  have  disliked  in  this  world  were 
flourishing  people,  of  good  repute.  Whereas  the  knaves 
whom  1  have  known,  one  and  all,  and  by  no  means  few 
1  think  of  with  pleasure  and  kindness. 

Heavens !  when  I  look  back  to  the  sufferings  which 
1  have  witnessed  or  heard  of,  even  from  this  one  brief 
London  experience,  I  say,  if  life  could  throw  open  its 
long  suites  of  chambers  to  our  eyes  from  some  station 
beforehand,  —  if,  from  some  secret  stand,  we  could  look  by 
anticipation  along  its  vast  corridors,  and  aside  into  the 
recesses  opening  upon  them  from  either  hand, — halls  of 
tragedy  or  chambers  of  retribution,  simply  in  that  small 
wing  and  no  more  of  the  great  caravanserai  which  we 
ourselves  shall  haunt,  —  simply  in  that  narrow  tract  of 
time,  and  no  more,  where  we  ourselves  shall  range, 
and  confining  our  gaze  to  those,  and  no  others,  fo> 
whom  personally  we  shall  be  interested,  —  what  a  recof 
we  should  suffer  of  horror  in  our  estimate  of  life  i 
What  if  those  sudden  catastrophes,  or  those  inexpiable 
afflictions,  which  have  already  descended  upon  the 
people  within  my  own  knowledge,  and  almost  below  my 
)wn  eyes,  all  of  them  now  gone  past,  and  some  long 
past,  had  been  thrown  open  before  me  as  a  secret  exhi¬ 
bition  when  first  I  and  they  stood  within  the  vestibule 
of  morning  hopes,  —  when  the  calamities  themselves  had 
hardly  begun  to  gather  in  their  elements  of  possibility 
*nd  when  some  of  the  parties  to  them  were  as  yet  no 
more  than  infants !  The  past  viewed  not  as  the  past, 
but  by  a  spectator  who  steps  back  ten  years  deeper  intc 
the  rear,  in  order  tnat  he  may  regard  it  as  a  future 
fee  calamity  of  1S40  contemplated  from  the  station  c* 


or  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


278 


*830,—  -the  doom  that  rang  the  knell  of  happiness 
viewed  from  a  point  of  time  when  as  yet  it  was  neithei 
feared  nor  would  even  have  been  intelligible,  —  the 
name  that  killed  in  1S43,  which  in  1835  would  have 
struck  no  vibration  upon  the  heart,  —  the  portrait  that 
on  the  day  of  her  Majesty’s  coronation  would  have  been 
admired  by  you  with  a  pure  disinterested  admiration, 
but  which,  if  seen  to-day,  would  draw  forth  an  involun¬ 
tary  groan, — cases  such  as  these  are  strangely  moving 
for  all  who  add  deep  thoughtfulness  to  deep  sensibility. 
As  the  hastiest  of  improvisations,  accept,  fair  reader 
(for  you  it  is  that  will  chiefly  feel  such  an  invocation 
of  the  past),  three  or  four  illustrations  from  my  own 
experience. 

Who  is  this  distinguished-looking  young  woman,  wit n 
her  eyes  drooping,  and  the  shadow  of  a  dreadful  shock 
yet  fresh  upon  every  feature  ?  Who  is  the  elderly  lady, 
with  her  eyes  flashing  fire  ?  Who  is  the  downcast 
child  of  sixteen  ?  What  is  that  torn  paper  lying  at 
their  feet  ?  Who  is  the  writer  ?  Whom  does  the  paper 
concern  ?  Ah !  if  she,  if  the  central  figure  in  the 
group  —  twenty-two  at  the  moment  when  she  is  revealed 
to  us  —  could,  on  her  happy  birth-day  at  sweet  seven¬ 
teen,  have  seen  the  image  of  herself  five  years  onwards, 
just  as  ice  see  it  now,  would  she  have  prayed  for  life 
is  for  an  absolute  blessing?  or  would  she  not  have 
prayed  to  be  taken  from  the  evil  to  come  —  to  be  taken 
away  one  evening,  at  least,  before  this  day’s  sun  arose  3 
.t  is  true,  she  still  wears  a  look  of  gentle  pride,  and  ?. 
relic  of  that  noble  smile  which  belongs  to  her  that 
differs  an  injury  which  many  times  over  she  would 
have  died  sooner  than  inflict.  Womanly  pride  refuses 


£80  A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 

itself  before  witnesses  to  the  total  prostration  of  thfl 
blow ;  but,  for  all  that ,  you  may  see  that  she  longs  to 
be  left  alone,  and  that  her  tears  will  flow  without 
restraint  when  she  is  so.  This  room  is  her  pretty 
boudoir,  in  which,  till  to-night  —  poor  thing !  —  she  has 
been  glad  and  happy.  There  stands  her  minia  ture  con¬ 
servatory,  and  there  expands  her  miniature  library ;  as 
we  circumnavigators  of  literature  are  apt  (you  know)  to 
regard  all  female  libraries  in  the  light  of  miniatures. 
None  of  these  will  ever  rekindle  a  smile  on  her  face ; 
and  there,  beyond,  is  her  music,  which  only  of  all  that 
she  possesses  will  now  become  dearer  to  her  than  ever, 
but  not,  as  once,  to  feed  a  self-mocked  pensiveness,  or 
to  cheat  a  half  visionary  sadness.  She  will  be  sad, 
indeed.  But  she  is  one  of  those  that  will  suffer  in 
silence.  Nobody  will  ever  detect  her  failing  in  any 
point  of  duty,  or  querulously  seeking  the  support  in 
others  which  she  can  find  for  herself  in  this  solitarv 
room.  Droop  she  will  not  in  the  sight  of  men ;  and, 
for  all  beyond,  nobody  has  any  concern  with  that , 
except  God.  You  shall  hear  what  becomes  of  her, 
before  we  take  our  departure ;  but  now  let  me  tell  you 
what  has  happened.  In  the  main  outline  I  am  sure 
you  guess  already,  without  aid  of  mine,  for  we  leaden¬ 
eyed  men,  in  such  cases,  see  nothing  by  comparison 
with  you  our  quick-witted  sisters.  That  haughty- 
looking  lady,  with  the  Roman  cast  of  features,  who  must 
once  have  been  strikingly  handsome,  —  an  Agrippina, 
even  yet,  in  a  favorable  presentation,  —  is  the  younger 
lady’s  aunt.  She,  it  is  rumored,  once  sustained,  is 
nor  younger  days,  some  injury  of  that  same  crue 
nature  which  has  this  day  assailed  her  niece,  and  evei 


OP  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


29. 


lince  she  has  worn  an  air  of  disdain,  not  altogethef 
unsupported  by  real  dignity  towards  men.  This  aunt 
it  was  that  tore  the  letter  which  lies  upon  the  floor.  It 
deserved  to  be  torn ;  and  yet  she  that  had  the  best  rght 
to  do  so  would  not  have  torn  it.  That  letter  was  an 
elaborate  attempt  on  the  part  of  an  accomplished  young 
man  to  release  himself  from  sacred  engagements.  What 
need  was  there  to  argue  the  case  of  such  engagements 
Could  it  have  been  requisite  with  pure  female  dignity  to 
plead  anything,  or  do  more  than  look  an  indisposition  to 
fulfil  them  ?  The  aunt  is  now  moving  towards  the 
door,  which  I  am  glad  to  see ;  and  she  is  followed  by 
that  pale,  timid  girl  of  sixteen,  a  cousin,  who  feels  the 
case  profoundly,  but  is  too  young  and  shy  to  offer  an 
intellectual  sympathy. 

One  only  person  in  this  world  there  is  who  could 
to-night  have  been  a  supporting  friend  to  our  young 
sufferer,  and  that  is  her  dear,  loving  twin-sister,  that 
for  eighteen  years  read  and  wrote,  thought  and  sang, 
slept  and  breathed,  with  the  dividing-door  open  forever 
between  their  bed-rooms,  and  never  once  a  separation 
between  their  hearts ;  but  she  is  in  a  far-distant  land 
Who  else  is  there  at  her  call  ?  Except  God,  nobody 
Her  aunt  had  somewhat  sternly  admonished  her,  though 
still  with  a  relenting  in  her  eye  as  she  glanced  aside 
at  the  expression  in  her  niece’s  face,  that  she  must 
“  call  pride  to  her  assistance.”  Ay,  true ;  but  pride 
though  a  strong  ally  in  public  is  apt  in  private  to  turn 
as  treacherous  as  the  worst  of  those  against  whom  sha 
is  invoked.  How  could  it  be  dreamed,  by  a  person  of 
sense  that  a  briliant  young  man,  of  merits  vaiious  and 
eminent,  in  spite  of  his  baseness,  to  whom,  for  nearly 


A  SEQUEL  TO  THE  CONFESSIONS 


88? 


two  years,  this  young  woman  had  given  ner  whole  co» 
fiding  love,  might  be  dismissed  from  a  heart  like  hers  ora 
die  earliest  summons  of  pride,  simply  because  she 
herself  had  been  dismissed  from  his ,  or  seemed  to  have 
been  dismissed,  on  a  summons  ot  mercenary  calculation  1 
Look !  now  that  she  is  relieved  from  the  weight  of  an 
unconfidential  presence,  she  has  sat  for  two  hours  with 
her  head  buried  in  her  hands.  At  last  she  rises  to  look 
for  something.  A  thought  has  struck  her;  and,  taking 
a  little  golden  key  which  hangs  by  a  chain  within  her 
bosom,  she  searches  for  something  locked  up  amongst 
her  few  jewels.  What  is  it  ?  It  is  a  Bible  exquisitely 
illuminated,  with  a  letter  attached  by  some  pretty  silken 
artifice  to  the  blank  leaves  at  the  end.  This  letter  is  a 
beautiful  record,  wisely  and  pathetically  composed,  ot 
maternal  anxiety  still  burning  strong  in  death,  and 
yearning,  when  all  objects  beside  were  fast  fading  from 
her  eyes,  after  one  parting  act  of  communion  with  the 
twin  darlings  of  her  heart.  Both  were  thirteen  years 
old,  within  a  week  or  two,  as  on  the  night  before  her 
death  they  sat  weeping  by  the  bedside  of  their  mother, 
and  hanging  on  her  lips,  now  for  farewell  whispers'  and 
now  for  farewell  kisses.  They  both  knew  that,  as  her 
strength  had  permitted  during  the  latter  month  of  her 
life,  she  had  thrown  the  last  anguish  of  love  in  her 
beseeching  heart  into  a  letter  of  counsel  to  themselves. 
Through  this,  of  which  each  sister  had  a  copy,  she 
«nisted  long  to  converse  with  her  orphans.  And  the 
last  promise  which  she  had  entreated  on  this  evening 
from  both  was,  that  in  either  of  two  contingencies  they 
Bvould  review  her  counsels,  and  the  passages  to  whiel? 
Rfie  pointed  their  attention  in  the  Scriptures ,  namely 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


283 


first,  in  the  event  of  any  calamity,  that,  for  one  sister  of 
for  both,  should  overspread  their  paths  with  total  dark 
ness ;  and,  secondly,  in  the  event  of  life  flowing  in  toa 
profound  a  stream  of  prosperity,  so  as  to  threaten  them 
with  an  alienation  of  interest  from  all  spiritual  objects. 
She  had  not  concealed  that,  of  these  two  extreme  cases, 
ahe  wouid  prefer  for  her  own  children  the  first.  And  novsz 
had  that  case  arrived,  indeed,  which  she  in  spirit  had 
desired  to  meet.  Nine  years  ago,  just  as  the  silvery 
voice  of  a  dial  in  the  dying  lady’s  bed-room  was  strik¬ 
ing  nine,  upon  a  summer  evening,  had  the  last  visual 
ray  streamed  from  her  seeking  eyes  upon  her  orphan 
twins,  after  which,  throughout  the  night,  she  had  slept 
away  into  heaven.  Now  again  had  come  a  summer 
evening  memorable  for  unhappiness ;  now  again  the 
daughter  thought  of  those  dying  lights  of  love  which 
streamed  at  sunset  from  the  closing  eyes  of  her  mother; 
again,  and  just  as  she  went  back  in  thought  to  this 
image,  the  same  silvery  voice  of  the  dial  sounded  nine 
o’clock.  Again  she  remembered  her  mother’s  dying 
request;  again  her  own  tear-hallowed  promise, — -and 
with  her  heart  in  her  mother’s  grave  she  now  rose  to 
fulfil  it.  Here,  then,  when  this  solemn  recurrence  to  a 
testamentary  counsel  has  ceased  to  be  a  mere  office  of 
duty  towards  the  departed,  naving  taken  the  shape  of  & 
consolation  for  herself,  let  us  pause. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Now,  fair  companion  m  this  exploring  voyage  of 
diquest  into  hidden  scenes,  or  forgotten  scenes  of  human 
jfe  r>erhaps  it  might  be  instructive  to  direct  our 
glasses  upon  the  false,  perfidious  lover.  It  might.  Bu$ 
do  not  let  us  do  so,  We  might  like  him  better,  or  pity 


284 


a  SEQUEL  TO  T11E  CONFESSIONS 


him  more,  than  either  of  us  would  desire.  His  name 
and  memory  have  long  since  dropped  out  of  every 
body’s  thoughts.  Of  prosperity,  and  (what  is  more 
important)  of  internal  peace,  he  is  reputed  to  have  had 
no  gleam  from  the  moment  when  he  betrayed  his  faith, 
and  in  one  day  threw  away  the  jewel  of  good  con¬ 
science,  and  “  a  pearl  richer  than  all  his  tribe.”  But, 
however  that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that,  finally,  he 
became  a  wreck ;  and  of  any  hopeless  wreck  it  is  pain¬ 
ful  to  talk,  —  much  more  so,  when  through  him  others 
also  became  wrecks. 

Shall  we,  then,  after  an  interval  of  nearly  two  years 
has  passed  over  the  young  lady  in  the  boudoir,  look  in 
again  upon  her  ?  You  hesitate,  fair  friend;  and  I  my¬ 
self  hesitate.  For  in  fact  she  also  has  become  a  wreck; 
and  it  would  grieve  us  both  to  see  her  altered.  At  the 
end  of  twenty-one  months  she  retains  hardly  a  vestige  of 
resemblance  to  the  fine  young  woman  we  saw  on  that 
unhappy  evening,  with  her  aunt  and  cousin.  On  con 
sideration,  therefore,  let  us  do  this. — We  will  direct  our 
glasses  to  her  room  at  a  point  of  time  about  six  weens 
further  on.  Suppose  this  time  gone  ;  suppose  her  now 
dressed  for  her  grave,  and  placed  in  her  coffin.  The 
advantage  of  that  is,  that  though  no  change  can  restore 
the  ravages  of  the  past,  yet  (as  often  is  found  to  happen 
with  young  persons)  the  expression  has  revived  from  her 
girlish  years  The  child-like  aspect  has  revolved,  and 
settled  back  upon  her  features.  The  wasting  away  of 
the  flesh  is  less  apparent  in  the  face  ,  and  one  might 
jnagine  that  in  this  sweet  marble  countenance  wai 
seen  the  very  same  upon  which,  eleven  years  ago,  her 
Esther’s  darkening  eyes  had  lingered  to  the  last,  ucti 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATEE. 


G.0UL3  had  swallowed  up  the  vision  of  her  beloved  twins . 
Yet,  if  that  were  in  part  a  fancy,  this,  at  least,  is  no 
fancy,  —  that  not  only  much  of  a  child-like  truth  and 
simplicity  has  reinstated  itself  in  the  temple  of  her  now 
reposing  features,  but  also  that  tranquillity  and  perfect 
peace,  such  as  are  appropriate  to  eternity,  but  which 
from  the  living  countenance  had  taken  their  flight  for¬ 
ever,  on  that  memorable  evening  when  we  looked  in 
upon  the  impassioned  group, —  upon  the  towering  and 
denouncing  aunt,  the  sympathizing  but  silent  cousin, 
the  poor,  blighted  niece,  and  the  wicked  letter  lying  in 
fragments  at  their  feet. 

Cloud,  that  hast  revealed  to  us  this  young  creature 
and  her  blighted  hopes,  close  up  again.  And  now,  a 
few  years  later,  —  not  more  than  four  or  five,  — give 
back  to  us  the  latest  arrears  of  the  changes  which  thou 
concealest  within  thy  draperies.  Once  more,  “  open 
sesame !  ”  and  show  us  a  third  generation.  Behold  a 
lawn  islanded  with  thickets.  How  perfect  is  the  ver¬ 
dure;  how  rich  the  blossoming  shrubberies  that  screen 
with  verdurous  walls  from  the  possibility  of  intrusion, 
whilst  by  their  own  wandering  line  of  distribution  they 
shape,  and  umbrageously  embay,  what  one  might  call 
lawny  saloons  and  vestibules,  sylvan  galleries  and 
sloset3  *  Sctme  of  these  recesses,  which  unlink  them  ¬ 
selves  as  fluently  as  snakes,  and  unexpectedly  as  the 
shyest  nooks,  watery  cells,  and  crypts,  amongst  the 
shores  of  a  forest-lake,  being  formed  by  the  mere 
caprices  and  ramblings  of  the  luxuriant  shrubs,  are  so 
small  and  so  quiet  that  one  might  fancy  them  mean* 
tor  boudoirs  Here  is  one  that  in  a  less  fickle  climate 
$ould  make  toe  loveliest  of  studies  for  a  writer  of 


286 


A  SEQUEL  TO  TECS  CONFESSIONS 


breathings  from  some  solitary  heart,  or  of  su&piria  frun 
some  impassioned  memory!  And,  opening  from  one 
angle  of  this  embowered  study,  issues  a  ittle  narrow 
corridor,  that,  after  almost  wheeling  back  upon  itself,  in 
its  playful  mazes,  finally  widens  into  a  little  circular 
chamber;  out  of  which  there  is  no  exit  (except  back 
again  by  the  entrance),  small  or  erreat;  so  that,  adjacent 
tc  his  study,  the  writer  would  command  how  sweet  a 
bed-room,  permitting  him  to  lie  the  summer  through, 
gazing  all  night  long  at  the  burning  host  of  heaven. 
Row  silent  that  would  be  at  the  noon  of  summer  nights 
» —  how  grave-like  in  its  quiet !  And  yet,  need  there  be 
asked  a  stillness  or  a  silence  more  profound  than  is  felt 
at  this  present  noon  of  day  ?  One  reason  for  such 
peculiar  repose,  over  and  above  the  tranquil  character 
of  the  day,  and  the  distance  of  the  pmee  from  the  high* 
roads,  is  the  outer  zone  of  woods,  which  almost  on  every 
quarter  invests  the  shrubberies,  swathing  them  (as  one 
may  express  it),  belting  them  and  overlooking  them, 
from  a  varying  distance  of  two  and  three  furlongs,  so  as 
oftentimes  to  keep  the  winds  at  a  distance.  But,  how¬ 
ever  caused  and  supported,  the  silence  of  these  fancifu. 
dwns  and  lawny  chambers  is  oftentimes  oppressive  in  the 
depths  of  summer  to  people  unfamiliar  with  solitudes, 
cither  mountainous  or  sylvan  ;  and  many  would  be  apt 
to  suppose  that  the  villa,  to  which  these  pretty  shrub¬ 
beries  form  the  chief  dependencies,  must  be  untenanted. 
But  that  is  not  the  case.  The  house  is  inhabited,  and 
*»y  its  own  legal  mistress,  the  proprietress  of  the  whoie 
domain ;  and  not  at  all  a  silent  mistress,  but  as  noisy  aa 
most  little  ladies  of  five  years  old,  for  that  is  ncr  age 
Mow,  and  just  as  we  are  speaking,  ycu  may  hear  h 


OF  AN  ENGLISH  OPIUM-EATER. 


287 


little  joyous  clamor,  as  she  issues  from  the  house.  This 
way  she  comes,  bounding  like  a  fawn ;  and  soon  she 
rushes  into  the  little  recess  which  I  pointed  out  as  a 
proper  stud)  for  any  man  who  should  be  weaving  the 
deep  harmonies  of  memorial  suspiria.  But  I  fancy  that 
she  will  soon  dispossess  it  of  that  character,  for  her 
piria  are  not  many  at  this  stage  of  her  life.  Now  she 
comes  dancing  into  sight ;  and  you  see  that,  if  she 
keeps  the  promise  of  her  infancy,  she  will  be  an  inter¬ 
esting  creature  to  the  eye  in  after  life.  In  other  respects, 
also,  she  is  an  engaging  child,  —  loving,  natural,  and 
wild  as  any  one  of  her  neighbors  for  some  miles  round 
namely,  leverets,  squirrels,  and  ring-doves.  But  what 
will  surprise  you  most  is,  that,  although  a  child  of  pure 
English  blood,  she  speaks  very  little  English  ;  but  more 
Bengalee  than  perhaps  you  will  find  it  convenient  to 
construe.  That  is  her  ayah,  who  comes  up  from  behind, 
at  a  pace  so  different  from  her  youthful  mistress’s.  But, 
if  their  paces  are  different,  in  other  things  they  agree 
most  cordially  ;  and  dearly  they  love  each  other.  In 
reality,  the  child  has  passed  her  whole  life  in  the  arm* 
of  this  ayah.  She  remembers  nothing  elder  than  her ; 
eldest  of  things  is  the  ayah  in  her  eyes ;  and,  if  the 
ayah  should  insist  on  her  worshipping  herself  as  the 
goddess  Railroadina  or  Steamboatina,  that  made  Eng* 
land,  and  the  sea,  and  Bengal,  it  is  certain  that  the 
little  thing  would  do  so,  asking  no  question  but  this,  — 
whether  kissing  would  do  for  worshipping. 

Ever)  evening  at  nine  o’clock,  as  the  ayah  sits  by  the 
little  creature  lying  awake  in  bed,  the  silvery  tongue  of 
R  dial  tolls  the  hour.  .Reader,  you  Know  who  she  is 
She  is  the  grand-daughter  of  her  that  faded  away  about 


283 


A  SEQUEL  tO  THE  CONFESSIONS,  ETC. 


sunset  in  gazing  at  her  twin  orphans.  Her  name  is 
Grace.  And  she  is  the  niece  of  that  elder  and  once 
happy  Grace,  who  spent  so  much  of  her  happiness  m 
this  very  room,  but  whom,  in  her  utter  desolation,  we 
saw  in  the  boudoir,  with  the  torn  letter  at  her  feet.  She. 
is  the  daughter  of  that  other  sister,  wife  to  a  military 
officer  who  died  abroad.  Little  Grace  never  saw  hci 
grandmamma,  nor  her  lovely  aunt,  that  was  her  name' 
-sake,  nor  consciously  her  mamma.  She  was  born  six 
months  after  the  death  of  the  elder  Grace ;  and  her 
mother  saw  her  only  through  the  mists  of  mortal  suffer* 
mg,  which  carried  her  off  three  weeks  after  the  birth  of 
her  daughter. 

This  view  was  taken  several  years  ago;  and  since 
ihen  the  younger  Grace,  in  her  turn,  is  under  a  cloud 
of  affliction.  But  she  is  still  under  eighteen ;  and  of 
her  there  may  be  hopes.  Seeing  such  things  in  so  short 
it  space  of  years,  for  the  grandmother  died  at  thirty-two, 
we  say,  —  Death  we  can  face  :  but  knowing,  as  some  of 
us  do,  what  is  human  life,  which  of  us  is  it  that  without 
Jmddering  could  (if  consciously  we  were  summoned) 
the  hour  of  birth  ? 


ADDITIONS 

TO  THE  “  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATm** 


DE  QUINCEY. 

This  family,  which  split  (or,  as  a  grammatical  purist 
lately  said  to  me,  in  a  tone  of  expostulation,  splat) 
into  three  national  divisions,  —  English,  French,  and 
American,  —  originally  was  Norwegian  ;  and  in  the 
year  of  our  Christian  era  one  thousand  spoke  (I  be¬ 
lieve)  the  most  undeniable  Norse.  Throughout  the 
eleventh  century,  the  heads  of  this  family  (in  com¬ 
mon  with  all  the  ruffians  and  martial  vagabonds  of 
Europe,  that  had  Venetian  sequins  enough  disposa¬ 
ble  for  such  a  trip)  held  themselves  in  readiness  to 
join  any  likely  leader  ;  and  did  join  William  the  Nor¬ 
man.  Very  few,  indeed,  or  probably  none,  of  his 
brigands  were  Frenchmen,  or  native  Neustrians  ; 
Normans  being  notoriously  a  name  not  derived  from 
any  French  province,  but  imported  into  that  province 
by  trans-Baltic,  and  in  a  smaller  proportion  by  cis- 
Baltic  aliens.  This  Norwegian  family,  having  as¬ 
sumed  a  territorial  denomination  from  the  district  or 
village  of  Quincy,  in  the  province  now  called  Nor¬ 
mandy,  transplanted  themselves  to  England  ;  where, 

(289> 


290 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


and  subsequently  by  marriage  in  Scotland,  they  as 
cended  to  the  highest  rank  in  both  kingdoms,  and 
held  the  highest  offices  open  to  a  subject.  A  late 
distinguished  writer,  Mr.  Moir,  of  Musselburgh,  the 
Delta  of  “Blackwood’s  Magazine,”  took  the  trouble 
(which  must  have  been  considerable)  of  tracing  their 
Aspiring  movements  in  Scotland,  through  a  period 
when  Normans  transferred  themselves  from  England 
to  Scotland  in  considerable  numbers,  and  with  great 
advantages.  This  elaborate  paper,  published  many 
years  ago  in  “  Blackwood’s  Magazine,”  first  made 
known  the  leading  facts  of  their  career  in  Scotland. 
Meantime  in  England  they  continued  to  flourish 
through  nine  or  ten  generations  ;  took  a  distin¬ 
guished  part  in  one,  at  least,  of  the  Crusades  ;  and 
a  still  more  perilous  share  in  the  Barons’  Wars, 
under  Henry  III.  No  family  drank  more  deeply  or 
more  frequently  from  the  cup  of  treason,  which  in 
those  days  was  not  always  a  very  grave  offence  in 
people  who  having  much  territorial  influence  had 
also  much  money.  But,  happening  to  drink  once 
too  often,  or  taking  too  long  a  “pull”  at  the  cup, 
the  Earls  of  Winchester  suddenly  came  to  grief. 
Amongst  the  romances  of  astronomy,  there  is  one, 
I  believe,  which  has  endeavored  to  account  for  the 
little  asteroids  of  our  system,  by  supposing  them 
fragments  of  some  great  planet  that  had,  under 
internal  convulsion  or  external  collision,  at  some 
period  suddenly  exploded.  In  our  own  planet  Tellus, 
such  a  county  as  York,  under  a  similar  catastrophe, 
would  make  a  very  pretty  little  asteroid.  And,  with 
tome  miniature  resemblance  to  such  a  case,  some 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


291 


tim^s  benefiting  by  the  indulgence  of  the  crown, 
sometimes  by  legal  devices,  sometimes  by  aid  of 
matrimonial  alliances,  numerous  descendants,  con¬ 
fessedly  innocent,  from  the  guilty  earl,  projected 
themselves  by  successive  efforts,  patiently  watching 
their  opportunities,  from  the  smoking  ruins  of  the 
great  feudal  house  ;  stealthily  through  two  genera¬ 
tions  creeping  out  of  their  lurking  holes  ;  timidly, 
when  the  great  shadows  from  the  threatening  throne 
had  passed  over,  reassuming  the  family  name.  Con¬ 
currently  with  these  personal  fragments  projected 
from  the  ancient  house,  flew  off  random  splinters 
and  fragments  from  the  great  planetary  disk  of  the 
Winchester  estates,  little  asteroids  that  formed  ample 
inheritances  for  the  wants  of  this  or  that  provincial 
squire,  of  this  or  that  tame  villatic  squireen.* 

The  kingly  old  oak,  that  had  been  the  leader  of  the 
forest,  was  thus  suddenly  (in  the  technical  language 
of  wood-craft)  cut  down  into  a  “  pollard. ”  This  muti¬ 
lation  forever  prevented  it  from  aspiring  cloudwards 
by  means  of  some  mighty  stem,  such  as  grows  upon 
Norwegian  hills,  fit  to  be  the  mast  of  "some  great 
ammiral.”  Nevertheless,  we  see  daily  amongst  the 
realities  of  nature,  that  a  tree,  after  passing  through 
such  a  process  of  degradation,  yet  manifests  the 
great  arrears  of  vindictive  life  lurking  within  it,  by 
throwing  out  a  huge  radiation  of  slender  boughs  and 

*  This  last  variety  of  the  rustic  regulm  is  of  Hibernian  origin  , 
fend,  as  regards  the  name,  was  unknown  to  us  in  England  until 
Mi 88  Edgeworth  had  extended  tae  horizon  of  our  social  experience. 
^Tet,  without  the  name,  I  presume  that  the  thing  must  have  be$« 
known  occasionally  even  in  England. 


292 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


miniature  shoots,  small  but  many,  so  that  we  are 
forced  exactly  to  invert  the  fine  words  of  Lucan, 
saying  no  longer,  trunco,  nonfrondibus  efficit  umbram , 
but,  on  the  contrary,  non  trunco  sed  frondibus  efficii 
umbram.  This  great  cabbage-head  of  this  ancient 
human  tice  threw  a  broad  massy  umbrage  over  more 
villages  than  one  ;  sometimes  yielding  representa¬ 
tives  moody  and  mutinous,  sometimes  vivacious  and 
inventive,  sometimes  dull  and  lethargic,  until  at  last, 
one  fine  morning,  on  rubbing  their  eyes,  they  found 
themselves  actually  in  the  sixteenth  century  abreast 
of  Henry  VIII.  and  his  fiery  children.  Ah,  what  a 
century  was  that !  Sculptured  as  only  Froude  can 
sculpture  those  that  fight  across  the  chasms  of  eter¬ 
nity  ;  grouped  as  only  Froude  can  group  the  mighty 
factions,  acting  or  suffering,  arraigning  before  chan« 
ceries  of  man,  or  protesting  before  chanceries  of  God 
—  what  vast  arrays  of  marble  gladiators  fighting  for 
truth,  real  or  imagined,  throng  the  arenas  in  each 
generation  of  that  and  the  succeeding  century  !  And 
how  ennobling  a  distinction  of  modern  humanity, 
that  in  Pagan  antiquity  no  truth  as  yet  existed,  none 
had  been  revealed,  none  emblazoned,  on  behalf  of 
which  man  could  have  fought !  As  Lord  Bacon  re¬ 
marks, —  though  strangely,  indeed,  publishing  in  the 
very  terms  of  this  remark  his  own  blindness  to  the 
causes  and  consequences,  —  religious  wars  were  un¬ 
known  to  antiquity.  Personal  interests,  and  those 
only,  did  or  could  furnish  a  subject  of  conflict.  But 
throughout  the  sixteenth  century,  whether  in  Eng¬ 
land,  in  France,  or  in  Germany,  it  was  a  spiritua. 
uteiest,  shadowy  and  aerial,  which  embattled  armie* 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


293 


Against  armies.  Simply  the  nobility  of  this  interest 
it  was,  simply  the  grandeur  of  a  cause  moving  by 
springs  transcendent  to  all  vulgar  and  mercenary 
collisions  of  prince  with  prince,  or  family  with  family, 
that  arrayed  man  against  man,  not  upon  petty  com¬ 
binations  of  personal  intrigue,  but  upon  questions  of 
everlasting  concern  —  this  majestic  principle  of  the 
strife  it  was  that  constituted  for  the  noblest  minds  its 
secret  magnetism.  Early  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
when  it  seemed  likely  that  the  interests  of  a  particu¬ 
lar  family  would  be  entangled  with  the  principles  at 
issue,  multitudes  became  anxious  to  evade  the  strife 
by  retiring  to  the  asylum  of  forests.  Amongst  these 
was  one  branch  of  the  De  Quinceys.  Enamored  of 
democracy,  this  family,  laying  aside  the  aristocratic 
D-3  attached  to  their  name,  settled  in  New  England, 
where  they  subsequently  rose,  through  long  public 
services,  to  the  highest  moral  rank  —  as  measured 
by  all  possible  expressions  of  public  esteem  that  are 
consistent  with  the  simplicities  of  the  great  republic. 
Mr,  Josiah  Quincy,  as  head  of  this  distinguished  fam¬ 
ily,  is  appealed  to  as  one  who  takes  rank  by  age  and 
large  political  experience  with  the  founders  of  the 
American  Union.  Another  branch  of  the  same  fam¬ 
ily  had,  at  a  much  earlier  period,  settled  in  France. 
Finally,  the  squires  and  squireens  —  that  is,  those 
vho  benefited  in  any  degree  by  those  “  asteroids” 
which  I  have  explained  as  exploded  from  the  ruins 
uf  the  Winchester  estates  —  naturally  remained  in 
England.  The  last  of  tnem  who  enjoyed  any  relics 
whatever  of  that  ancient  territorial  domain,  was  an 
aider  kinsman  of  my  father  I  never  had  the  honor 


294 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


of  seeing  him  ;  in  fact,  it  was  impossible  that  I  should 
have  such  an  honor,  since  he  died  during  the  Amer¬ 
ican  war,  which  war  had  closed,  although  it  had  not 
paid  its  bills,  some  time  before  my  birth.  He  enacted 
the  part  of  squireen,  I  have  been  told,  creditably 
enough  in  a  village  belonging  either  to  the  county 
of  Leicester,  Nottingham,  or  Rutland.  Sir  Andrew 
Aguecheek  observes,  as  one  of  his  sentimental  re¬ 
membrances,  that  he  also  at  one  period  of  his  life  had 
been  11  adored.  ”  “I  was  adored  once,”  says  the 
knight,  seeming  to  acknowledge  that  he  was  not 
adored  then.  But  the  squireen  was  11  adored  ”  in  a 
limited  way  to  the  last.  This  fading  representative 
of  a  crusading  house  declined  gradually  into  the 
oracle  of  the  bar  at  the  Red  Lion  ;  and  was  adored 
by  two  persons  at  the  least  (not  counting  himself), 
namely,  the  landlord,  and  occasionally  the  waiter. 
Mortgages  had  eaten  up  the  last  vestiges  of  the  old 
territorial  wrecks  ;  and,  with  his  death,  a  new  era 
commenced  for  this  historical  family,  which  now  (as 
if  expressly  to  irritate  its  ambition)  finds  itself  dis¬ 
tributed  amongst  three  mighty  nations, — France, 
America,  and  England,  —  and  precisely  those  three 
that  are  usually  regarded  as  the  leaders  of  civiliza¬ 
tion.* 

*  The  omission  of  the  De,  as  an  addition  looking  better  at  a  tour¬ 
nament  than  as  an  endorsement  on  a  bill  of  exchange,  began,  a« 
to  many  hundreds  of  English  names,  full  three  hundred  years  ago. 
Many  English  families  have  disused  this  affix  simply  from  indo- 
tonee.  As  to  the  terminal  variations,  cy,  cie ,  cey,  those  belong,  &s 
natural  and  inevitable  exponents  of  a  transitional  condition,  to  th« 
unsettled  spelling  that  characterizes  the  early  stages  of  literature  if 
*11  countries  alike 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


295 


MY  GUARDIANS.42 

My  father  died  when  I  was  in  my  seventh  year,  leav- 
Eg  six  children,  including  myself  (viz.,  four  sons  and 
two  daughters),  to  the  care  of  four  guardians  and  of  our 
mother,  who  was  invested  with  the  legal  authority  of  a 
guardian.  This  word  “ guardian  ”  kindles  a  fiery  thrill* 
ing  in  my  nerves  ;  so  much  was  that  special  power  of 
guardianship,  as  wielded  by  one  of  the  four,  concerned 
in  the  sole  capital  error  of  my  boyhood.  To  this  error 
my  own  folly  would  hardly  have  been  equal,  unless  by 
concurrence  with  the  obstinacy  of  others.  From  the 
bitter  remembrance  of  this  error  in  myself  —  of  this  ob¬ 
stinacy  in  my  hostile  guardian,  suffer  me  to  draw  the  priv¬ 
ilege  of  making  a  moment’s  pause  upon  this  subject  of 
legal  guardianship. 

There  is  not  (I  believe)  in  human  society,  under  what¬ 
ever  form  of  civilization,  any  trust  or  delegated  duty 
which  has  more  often  been  negligently  or  even  perfidi¬ 
ously  administered.  In  the  days  of  classical  Greece  and 
Rome,  my  own  private  impression,  founded  on  the  colla¬ 
tion  of  many  incidental  notices,  is  —  that  this,  beyond 
all  other  forms  of  domestic  authority,  furnished  to  whole¬ 
sale  rapine  and  peculation  their  very  amplest  arena. 
The  relation  of  father  and  son,  as  was  that  of  patron  and 
client,  were  generally,  in  the  practice  of  life,  cherished 
with  religious  fidelity  :  whereas  the  solemn  duties  of  the 
hitor  ( i .  e.  the  guardian )  to  his  ward,  which  had  their  very 
•oot  and  origin  in  the  tenderest  adjurations  of  a  dying 
tT.end,  though  subsequently  refreshed  by  the  hourly  spee- 
*pcle  of  helpless  orphanage  playing  round  the  margins 
if  pitfalls  hidden  bv  flowers.,  spoke  but  seldom  to  the 


296 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


legibilities  of  a  Roman  through  any  language  of  o rs; 
ular  power.  Few  indeed,  if  any,  were  the  obligation 
in  a  proper  sense  moral  which  pressed  upon  the  Roman 
The  main  fountains  of  moral  obligation  had  in  Rome,  by 
law  or  by  custom,  been  thoroughly  poisoned.  Marriage 
had  corrupted  itself  through  the  facility  of  divorce,  and 
through  the  consequences  of  that  facility  (viz.  levity  in 
choosing,  and  fickleness  in  adhering  to  the  choice),  into  so 
exquisite  a  traffic  of  selfishness,  that  it  could  not  yield  so 
much  as  a  phantom  model  of  sanctity.  The  relation  ol 
husband  and  wife  had,  for  all  moral  impressions,  perished 
amongst  the  Romans.  The  relation  of  father  and  child 
had  all  its  capacities  of  holy  tenderness  crushed  out  of  it 
under  the  fierce  pressure  of  penal  and  vindictive  enforce¬ 
ments.  The  duties  of  the  client  to  his  patron  stood  upon 
no  basis  of  simple  gratitude  or  simple  fidelity  (correspond¬ 
ing  to  the  feudal  fealty),  but  upon  a  basis  of  prudential 
terror ;  terror  from  positive  law,  or  from  social  opinion. 
From  the  first  intermeddling  of  law  with  the  movement 
of  the  higher  moral  affections,  there  is  an  end  to  freedom 
in  the  act,  to  purity  in  the  motive,  to  dignity  in  the 
personal  relation.  Accordingly,  in  the  France  of  the 
pre-revolutionary  period,  and  in  the  China  of  all  periods, 
it  has  been  with  baleful  effects  to  the  national  morals 
that  positive  law  has  come  in  aid  of  the  paternal  rights. 
And  in  the  Rome  of  ancient  history  it  may  be  said  that 
ffiis  one  orginal  and  rudimental  wrong  done  to  the  holy 
freedom  of  human  affections,  had  the  effect  of  extinguish¬ 
ing  thenceforward  all  conscientious  movement  in  what¬ 
ever  direction.  And  thus,  amongst  a  people  naturally 
aiore  highly  piincipled  than  the  Greeks,  if  you  except 
sbulliticns  of  public  SDirit  and  patriotism  ^too  often  os 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER 


29? 


snere  ignoble  nationality).,  no  class  of  actions  stood  upon 
my  higher  basis  of  motive  than  (1.)  legal  ordinance  ; 
(2.)  superstitious  fear ;  or  (3.)  servile  compliance  with 
ihe  insolent  exactions  of  popular  usage.  Strange,  there¬ 
fore,  it  would  have  been  if  the  tutor  of  obscure  orphans, 
with  extra  temptations,  and  extra  facilities  for  indulging 
them,  should  have  shown  himself  more  faithful  to  his 
trust  than  the  governor  of  provinces  —  praetorian  or 
proconsular.  Yet  who  more  treacherous  and  rapacious 
than  he  ?  Rarest  of  men  was  the  upright  governor 
that  accepted  no  bribes  from  the  criminal,  and  extorted 
no  ransoms  from  the  timid.  He  nevertheless,  as  a  public 
trustee,  was  watched  by  the  jealousy  of  political  com 
petitors,  and  had  by  possibility  a  solemn  audit  to  face  in 
the  senate  or  in  the  forum  ;  perhaps  in  both.  But  the 
tutor,  who  administered  a  private  trust  on  behalf  of 
orphans,  might  count  on  the  certainty  that  no  public  at¬ 
tention  could  ever  be  attracted  to  concerns  so  obscure, 
and  politically  so  uninteresting.  Reasonably,  therefore, 
and  by  all  analogy,  a  Roman  must  have  regarded  the 
ordinary  domestic  tutor  as  almost  inevitably  a  secret  de¬ 
linquent  using  the  opportunities  and  privileges  of  his 
office  as  mere  instruments  for  working  spoliation  and 
ruin  upon  the  inheritance  confided  to  his  care.  This 
deadly  and  besetting  evil  of  Pagan  days  must  have 
deepened  a  hundredfold  the  glooms  overhanging  the 
death-beds  of  parents.  Too  often  the  dying  father  could 
lot  fail  to  read  in  his  own  life-long  experience,  that, 
whilst  seeking  special  protection  for  his  children,  he  might 
himself  be  introducing  amongst  them  a  separate  amd 
mminent  danger.  Leaving  behind  him  a  little  house¬ 
hold  of  infants,  a  little  fleet  (as  it  might  be  represented) 


298 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


of  fairy  pinnaces,  just  raising  their  anchors  m  prepara¬ 
tion  for  crossing  the  mighty  deeps  of  life,  he  made 
signals  for  “  convoy.”  Some  one  or  two  (at  best  im¬ 
perfectly  known  to  him),  amongst  those  who  traversed 
the  same  seas,  he  accepted  in  that  character ;  but  doubt¬ 
fully,  sorrowfully,  fearfully  ;  and  at  the  very  moment 
when  the  faces  of  his  children  were  disappearing  amongst 
the  vapors  of  death,  the  miserable  thought  would  cross 
his  prophetic  soul  —  that  too  probably  this  pretended 
u  convoy,”  under  the  strong  temptations  of  the  case, 
might  eventually  become  pirates ;  robbers,  at  the  least ; 
and  by  possibility  wilful  misleaders  to  the  inexperience 
of  his  children. 

From  this  dreadful  aggravation  of  the  anguish  at  any 
rate  besetting  the  death-beds  of  parents  summoned  away 
from  a  group  of  infant  children,  there  has  been  a  mighty 
deliverance  wrought  in  a  course  of  centuries  by  the  vast 
diffusion  of  Christianity.  In  these  days,  wheresoever 
an  atmosphere  is  breathed  that  has  been  purified  by 
Christian  charities  and  Christian  principles  —  this  house¬ 
hold  pestilence  has  been  continually  dwindling :  and  in 
the  England  of  this  generation  there  is  no  class  of  pecu¬ 
lation  which  we  so  seldom  hear  of :  one  proof  of  which 
is  found  in  the  indifference  with  which  most  of  us  re¬ 
gard  the  absolute  security  offered  to  children  by  the 
Court  of  Chancery.  My  father,  therefore,  as  regarded 
;ho  quiet  of  his  dying  hours,  benefited  by  the  felicity  ci 
his  times  and  his  country.  He  made  the  best  selection 
for  the  future  guardianship  of  his  six  children  that  hia 
opportunities  allowed ;  from  his  circle  of  intimate 
friends,  he  selected  the  four  who  stood  highest  in  hig 
tsfimation  for  honor  and  practical  wisdom  :  which  done 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


299 


And  relying  for  the  redressing  ol  any  harsh  tendencies  ia 
male  guardians  upon  the  discretional  power  lodged  in 
my  mother,  thenceforth  he  rested  from  his  anxieties. 
Not  one  of  these  guardians  but  justified  his  choice  so 
far  as  honor  and  integrity  were  concerned.  Yet,  after 
all,  there  is  a  limit  (and  sooner  reached  perhaps  in  Eng¬ 
land  than  in  other  divisions  of  Christendom)  to  the  good 
that  can  be  achieved  in  such  cases  by  prospective  wis¬ 
dom.  For  we,  in  England,  more  absolutely  than  can 
be  asserted  of  any  other  nation,  are  not  faineans  :  rich 
and  poor,  all  of  us  have  something  to  do.  To  Italy  it 
is  that  we  must  look  for  a  peasantry  idle  through  two 
thirds  of  their  time.  To  Spain  it  is  that  we  must  look 
for  an  aristocracy  physically  *  degraded  under  the  igno¬ 
ble  training  of  women  and  priests ;  and  for  princes 
(such  as  Ferdinand  VII.)  that  make  it  the  glory  of  their 
lives  to  have  embroidered  a  petticoat.  Amongst  our- 
sel  res  of  this  current  generation,  whilst  those  functions 
of  guardianship  may  be  surely  counted  on  which  pre¬ 
sume  conscientious  loyalty  to  the  interests  of  their  wards ; 
on  the  other  hand,  all  which  presume  continued  vigil¬ 
ance  and  provision  from  afar  are,  in  simple  truth,  hardly 
compatible  with  our  English  state  of  society.  The 
guardians  chosen  by  my  father,  had  they  been  the  wisest 
and  also  the  most  energetic  bf  men,  could  not  in  many 


*  It  is  asserted  by  travellers  —  English,  French,  and  German  alike 
-  that  the  ducal  order  in  Spain  (as  that  order  of  the  Spanish  peerage 
Lost  carefully  withdrawn  from  what  Kentucky  would  call  the  rough 
tnd-tumble  discipline  of  a  popular  education)  exhibit  in  their  very  per- 
*>ns  and  bodily  development  undisguised  evidences  of  effeminate  hab- 
ts  operating  through  many  generations.  It  would  be  satisfactory  t* 
mow  the  unexaggerated  truth  on  this  point ;  the  truth  unbiassed  alikf 
W  jational  and  by  democratic  prejudices. 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


conceivable  emergencies  have  fulfilled  his  secret  wishes, 
Of  the  four  men,  one  was  a  merchant  (not  in  the  nar« 
row  sense  of  Scotland,  derived  originally  from  France 
where  no  class  of  merchant  princes  has  ever  existed* 
but  in  the  large,  noble  sense  of  England,  of  Florence, 
of  Venice)  :  consequently  his  extensive  relations  with 
sea-ports  and  distant  colonies  continually  drawing  of! 
his  attention,  and  even  his  personal  presence,  from 
domestic  affairs,  made  it  hopeless  that  he  should  even 
attempt  more  on  behalf  of  his  wards  than  slightly  to 
watch  the  administration  of  their  pecuniary  interests. 
A  second  of  our  guardians  was  a  rural  magistrate,  but 
in  a  populous  district  close  upon  Manchester,  which  even 
at  that  time  was  belted  with  a  growing  body  of  turbulent 
aliens  —  Welsh  and  Irish.  He  therefore,  overwhelmed 
by  the  distractions  of  his  official  station,  rightly  perhaps 
conceived  himself  to  have  fulfilled  his  engagements  as  a 
guardian,  if  he  stood  ready  to  come  forward  upon  any 
difficulty  arising,  but  else  in  ordinary  cases  devolved  his 
functions  upon  those  who  enjoyed  more  leisure.  In  that 
category  stood,  beyond  a  doubt,  a  third  of  our  guardians, 
the  Rev.  Samuel  H.,  who  was  at  the  time  of  my  father's 
death  a  curate  at  some  church  (I  believe)  in  Manchester 
or  in  Salford.*  This  gentleman  represented  a  class  — 


*  Salford  is  a  large  town  legally  distinguished  from  Manchester  for 
•arliamentary  purposes,  and  divided  from  it  physically  by  a  river,  but 
else  virtually,  as  regards  intercourse  and  reciprocal  influence,  is  a  quar- 
\er  of  Manchester;  in  fact  holding  the  same  relation  to  Manchester 
that  Southwark  does  to  London;  or,  if  the  reader  insists  upon  having 
%  classical  illustration  of  the  case,  the  same  relation  that  in  ancient 
Jays  Argos  did  to  Mycenae.  An  invitation  to  dinner  given  by  th« 
public  herald  of  Argos,  could  be  heard  to  the  centre  of  Mycenae  ;  anc 
Vv  a  gourmand,  if  the  dinner  promised  to  be  specially  good,  in  the  r® 
tioter  suburb. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


301 


large  enough  at  all  times  by  necessity  of  human  nature, 
but  in  those  days  far  larger  than  at  present  —  that  class, 
T  mean,  who  sympathize  with  no  spiritual  sense  or  spir¬ 
itual  capacities  in  man  ;  who  understand  by  religion  siro- 
ply  a  respectable  code  of  ethics,  leaning  for  support 
upon  some  great  mysteries  dimly  traced  in  the  back¬ 
ground,  and  commemorated  in  certain  great  church  fes¬ 
tivals  by  the  elder  churches  of  Christendom  ;  as,  e.  g*, 
by  the  English,  which  does  not  stand  as  to  age  on  the 
Reformation  epoch,  by  the  Romish,  and  by  the  Greek. 
He  had  composed  a  body  of  about  330  sermons,  which 
thus,  at  the  rate  of  two  every  Sunday,  revolved  through 
a  cycle  of  three  years  ;  that  period  being  modestly  as 
eumed  as  sufficient  for  insuring  to  their  eloquence  total 
oblivion.  Possibly  to  a  cynic  some  shorter  cycle  might 
have  seemed  equal  to  that  effect,  since  their  topics  rose 
but  rarely  above  the  level  of  prudential  ethics ;  and  the 
style,  though  scholarly,  was  not  impressive.  As  a 
preacher,  Mr.  H.  was  sincere,  but  not  earnest.  He  was 
a  goo3  and  conscientious  man  ;  and  he  made  a  high  val¬ 
uation  of  the  pulpit  as  an  organ  of  civilization  for  cooper¬ 
ating  with  books  ;  but  it  was  impossible  for  any  man, 
starting  from  the  low  ground  of  themes  so  unimpas¬ 
sioned  and  so  desultory  as  the  benefits  of  industry,  the 
danger  from  bad  companions,  the  importance  of  setting  a 
good  example,  or  the  value  of  perseverance  —  to  pump 
up  any  persistent  stream  of  earnestness  either  in  him¬ 
self  or  in  his  auditors.  These  auditors,  again,  were  noi  ol 
ii  class  to  desire  much  earnestness.  There  we~e  no 
naughty  people  among  them :  most  of  them  were  rich, 
»nd  came  to  church  in  carriages  and,  as  a  natural  ro- 
vult  of  their  esteem  for  my  reverend  guardian,  a  nura 


302 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


her  of  them  combined  to  build  a  church  for  him  —  viiv* 
St.  Peter’s  —  at  the  point  of  confluence  between  Mosely 
Street  and  the  newly  projected  Oxford  Street ;  then  ex¬ 
isting  only  as  a  sketch  in  the  portfolio  of  a  surveyor. 
But  what  connected  myself  individually  with  Mr.  IT. 
was,  that  two  or  three  years  previously  I,  together  with 
one  of  my  brothers  (five  years  my  senior),  had  been 
placed  under  his  care  for  classical  instruction.  This  waa 
done,  I  believe,  in  obedience  to  a  dying  injunction  of 
my  father,  who  had  a  just  esteem  for  Mr.  S.  H.,  as  an 
upright  man,  but  apparently  too  exalted  an  opinion  ol 
his  scholarship  :  for  he  was  but  an  indifferent  Grecian. 
In  whatever  way  the  appointment  arose,  so  it  was  that 
this  gentleman,  previously  tutor  in  the  Roman  sense  to 
all  of  us,  now  became  to  my  brother  and  myself  tutor 
also  in  the  common  English  sense.  From  the  age  of 
eight  up  to  eleven  and  a  half,  the  character  and  intel¬ 
lectual  attainments  of  Mr.  H.,  were  therefore  influen¬ 
tially  important  to  myself  in  the  development  of  my 
powers,  such  as  they  were.  Even  his  330  sermons, 
which  rolled  overhead  with  such  slender  effect  upon 
his  general  congregation,  to  me  became  a  real  in¬ 
strument  of  improvement.  One  half  of  these,  indeed, 
were  all  that  I  heard ;  for,  as  my  father’s  house 
(Greenhay)  stood  at  this  time  in  the  country,  Man- 
Jiester  not  having  yet  overtaken  it,  the  distance 
>bliged  us  to  go  in  a  carriage,  and  only  to  the  morn¬ 
ing  service  ;  but  every  sermon  in  this  morning  course 
was  propounded  to  me  as  a  textual  basis  upon  which 
i  was  to  raise  a  mimic  duplicate  —  sometimes  a 
pure  miniature  abstract  —  sometimes  a  rhetorical  ex¬ 
pansion— but  preserving  as  much  a?  possible  of  th# 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATEJR. 


303 


original  language.;  and  also  (which  puzzled  me  pain 
fully)  preserving  the  exact  succession  of  the  thoughts  ; 
which  might  be  easy  where  they  stood  in  some  depend¬ 
ency  upon  each  other,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  an  argument,  but  in  arbitrary  or  chance  ar¬ 
rangements  was  often  as  trying  to  my  powers  as  any 
feat  of  rope-dancing.  I,  therefore,  amongst  that  who'll 
congregation,*  was  the  one  sole  careworn  auditor  —  agi¬ 
tated  about  that  which,  over  all  other  heads,  flowed 
away  like  water  over  marble  slabs  —  viz.,  the  somewhat 
torpid  sermon  of  my  somewhat  torpid  guardian.  But 


*  “  That  whole  congregation:  ”  —  Originally  at  churches  which  I  do 
not  remember,  where,  however,  in  consideration  of  my  tender  age, 
the  demands  levied  upon  my  memory  were  much  lighter.  Two  or 
three  years  later,  when  I  must  have  been  nearing  my  tenth  year,  and 
when  St.  Peter’s  had  been  finished,  occurred  the  opening,  and  con¬ 
sequently  (as  an  indispensable  pre-condition)  the  consecration  of  that 
edifice  by  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  (viz.,  Chester).  I,  as  a  ward  of 
the  incumbent,  was  naturally  amongst  those  specially  invited  to  the 
festival ;  and  I  remember  a  little  incident,  which  exposed  broadly  the 
the  conflict  of  feelings  inherited  by  the  Church  of  England  from  the 
Puritans  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  architecture  of  the  church, 
was  Grecian;  and  certainly  the  enrichments,  inside  or  outside,  were 
Jew  enough,  neither  florid  nor  obtrusive.  But  in  the  centre  of  the 
ceiling,  for  the  sake  of  breaking  the  monotony  of  so  large  a  blank 
white  surface,  there  was  moulded,  in  plaster-of-Paris,  a  large  tablet  or 
shield,  charged  with  a  cornucopia  of  fruits  and  flowers.  And  yet 
when  we  were  all  assembled  in  the  vestry  waiting  —  rector,  church 
wardens,  architect,  and  trains  of  dependents  —  there  arose  a  dee} 
buzz  of  anxiety,  which  soon  ripened  into  an  articulate  expression  < 
Sear,  that  the  bishop  would  think  himself  bound,  like  the  horrid  eikon- 
'clasts  of  1645,  to  issue  his  decree  of  utter  averruncation  to  the  sim¬ 
ple  decoration  overhead.  Fearfully  did  we  all  tread  the  little  aisles  in 
She  procession  of  the  prelate.  Earnestly  my  lord  looked  upwards ; 
aut  finally  —  were  it  courtesy,  or  doubtfulness  as  tc  his  ground,  or 
•urobation  —  he  passed  o»i. 


504 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


this  annoyance  was  not  wholly  lost :  and  those  sama 
& |-°-  sermons,  which  (lasting  only  through  sixteen  min¬ 
utes  each)  were  approved  and  forgotten  by  everybody 
else,  for  me  became  a  perfect  palaestra  of  intellectual 
gymnastics  far  better  suited  to  my  childich  weakness 
than  could  have  been  the  sermons  of  Isaac  Barrow  or 
Jeremy  Taylor.  In  these  last,  the  gorgeous  imagery 
would  have  dazzled  my  feeble  vision,  and  in  both  the 
gigantic  thinking  would  have  crushed  my  efforts  at  ap¬ 
prehension.  I  drew,  in  fact,  the  deepest  benefits  from 
this  weekly  exercise.  Perhaps,  also,  in  the  end  it 
ripened  into  a  great  advantage  for  me,  though  long  and 
bitterly  I  complained  of  it,  that  I  was  not  allowed  to 
use  a  pencil  in  taking  notes ;  all  was  to  be  charged  upon 
the  memory.  But  it  is  notorious  that  the  memory 
strengthens  as  you  lay  burdens  upon  it,  and  becomes 
trustworthy  as  you  trust  it.  So  that,  in  my  third  year 
of  practice,  I  found  my  abstracting  and  condensing 
powers  sensibly  enlarged.  My  guardian  was  gradually 
better  satisfied :  for  unfortunately  (and  in  the  beginning 
it  was  unfortunate)  always  one  witness  could  be  sum¬ 
moned  against  me  upon  any  impeachment  of  my  fidelity 
—  viz.,  the  sermon  itself ;  since,  though  lurking  amongst 
the  330,  the  wretch  was  easily  forked  out.  But  these 
appeals  grew  fewer ;  and  my  guardian,  as  I  have  said, 
was  continually  better  satisfied.  Meantime,  might  not  I 
be  continually  less  satisfied  with  him  and  his  330  ser¬ 
mons  ?  Not  at  all :  loving  and  trusting,  without  doubt 
or  reserve,  and  with  the  deepest  principles  of  veneration 
rooted  in  my  nature,  I  never,  upon  meeting  something 
more  impressive  than  the  average  complexion  of  rry 
jjpiar  lian’s  discourses,  for  one  moment  thought  of  him  a* 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


305 


tforse  or  feebler  than  others,  but  simply  as  different’, 
ftnd  no  more  quarrelled  with  him  for  his  characteristic 
langor,  than  with  a  green  riband  for  not  being  blue. 
By  mere  accident,  I  one  day  heard  quoted  a  couplet 
which  seemed  to  me  sublime.  It  described  a  preacher 
such  as  sometimes  arises  in  difficult  times,  or  in  ferment* 
mg  times,  a  son  of  thunder,  that  looks  all  enemies  in  the 
face,  and  volunteers  a  defiance  even  when  it  would  have 
been  easy  to  evade  it.  The  lines  were  written  by  Rich" 
a^d  Baxter  —  who  battled  often  with  self-created  storms 
from  the  first  dawn  of  the  Parliamentary  War  in  1642, 
through  the  period  of  Cromwell  (to  whom  he  was  per¬ 
sonally  odious),  and,  finally,  through  the  trying  range  of 
the  second  Charles  and  of  the  second  James.  As  a  pul¬ 
pit  orator,  he  was  perhaps  the  Whitfield  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century  — -  the  Leuconomos  of  Cowper.  And 
thus  it  is  that  he  describes  the  impassioned  character  of 
his  own  preaching  — 

“I  preach’d,  as  never  sure  to  preach  again  ;  ” 

[Even  that  was  telling ;  but  then  followed  this  thunder- 

“  And  as  a  dying  man  to  dying  men.” 

This  couplet,  which  seemed  to  me  equally  for  weight 
and  for  splendor  like  molten  gold,  laid  bare  another  as¬ 
pect  of  the  Catholic  Church ;  revealed  it  as  a  Church 
militant  and  crusading. 

Not  even  thus,  however,  did  I  descry  any  positive  im* 
Derfection  in  my  guardian.  He  and  Baxter  had  fallen 
cpon  different  generations.  Baxter’s  century,  from  first 
to  last  was  revolutionary.  Along  the  entire  course  oJ 
that  seventeenth  century,  the  g^eat  principles  of  repre 

20 


306 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


tentative  government  and  the  rights  of  conscience  *  weri 
passing  through  the  anguish  of  conflict  and  fiery  trial 
Now  again  in  my  own  day,  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  it  is  true  that  all  the  elements  of  social  lift* 
were  thrown  into  the  crucible  —  but  on  behalf  of  oui 
neighbors,  no  longer  of  ourselves.  No  longer,  there 
fore,  was  invoked  the  heroic  pleader,  ready  for  martyr' 
dom,  preaching,  therefore,  “  as  never  sure  to  preach 
again  ;  ”  and  I  no  more  made  it  a  defect  in  my  guardian 
that  he  wanted  energies  for  combating  evils  now  forgot¬ 
ten,  than  that  he  had  not  in  patriotic  fervor  leaped  into 
a  gulf,  like  the  fabulous  Roman  martyr,  Curtius,  or  in 
zeal  for  liberty  had  not  mounted  a  scaffold,  like  the  real 
English  martyr,  Algernon  Sidney. 

Every  Sunday,  duly  as  it  revolved,  brought  with  it 
this  cruel  anxiety.  On  Saturday  night,  under  sad  an¬ 
ticipation,  on  Sunday  night,  under  madder  experimental 
knowledge,  of  my  trying  task,  1  slept  ill ;  my  pillow 
was  stuffed  with  thorns ;  and  until  Monday  morning’s 
inspection  and  armilustrium  had  dismissed  me  from 
parade  to  “  stand  at  ease,”  verily  I  felt  like  a  false 
steward  summoned  to  some  killing  audit.  Then  sup¬ 
pose  Monday  to  be  invaded  by  some  horrible  intruder 
visitor  perhaps  from  a  band  of  my  guardian’s  poor  re* 
latioas,  that  in  some  undiscovered  nook  of  Lancashire 


*  “  The  rights  of  conscience:” —  With  which  it  is  painful  to  know 
that  Baxter  did  not  sympathize.  Religious  toleration  he  called  “  Soub 
Uiurder.”  And  if  you  reminded  him  that  the  want  of  this  toleration 
hid  been  his  own  capital  grievance,  he  replied,  “  Ah,  but  the  casei 
«rere  very  different:  I  was  in  the  right;  whereas  the  vast  majority  cl 
(host  who  will  benefit  by  this  newfangled  toleration  are  shockingly  it 
Sie  wcng  ” 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


307 


ieemed  in  fancy  to  blacken  all  the  fields,  and  s  .tddenly 

at  a  single  note  of  “  caw  zaw  ”  rose  in  one  vast  cloud 

like  crows,  and  settled  down  for  weeks  at  the  table  of 

my  guardian  and  his  wife,  whose  noble  hospitality  would 

never  allow  the  humblest  amon^  them  to  be  saddened 

© 

by  a  faint  welcome.  In  such  cases  very  possibly,  the 
whole  week  did  not  see  the  end  of  my  troubles. 

On  these  terms  for  upwards  of  three  and  a  half  years 
• —  that  is,  from  my  eighth  to  beyond  my  eleventh  birth¬ 
day  —  my  guardian  and  I  went  on  cordially :  he  was 
never  once  angry,  as  indeed  he  never  had  any  reason 
for  anger  ;  I  never  once  treating  my  task  either  as  odi¬ 
ous  (which  in  the  most  abominable  excess  it  was),  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  costing  but  a  trivial  effort,  which 
practice  might  have  taught  me  to  hurry  through  with 
contemptuous  ease.  To  the  very  last  I  found  no  ease  at 
all  in  this  weekly  task,  which  never  ceased  to  be  “  a 
thorn  in  the  flesh :  ”  and  I  believe  that  my  guardian,  like 
many  of  the  grim  Pagan  divinities,  inhaled  a  flavor  of 
fragrant  incense,  from  the  fretting  and  stinging  of  anxi¬ 
ety  which,  as  if  were  some  holy  vestal  fire,  he  kept  alive 
by  this  periodic  exaction.  It  gave  him  pleasure  that  he 
could  reach  me  in  the  very  recesses  of  my  dreams, 
where  even  a  Pariah  might  look  for  rest ;  so  that  the 
Sunday,  which  to  man,  and  even  to  the  brutes  within 
his  gates,  offered  an  interval  of  rest,  for  me  was  signal¬ 
ized  as  a  day  of  martyrdom.  Yet  in  this,  after  all,  it  is 
possible  that  he  did  me  a  service  :  for  my  constitutional 
infirmity  of  mind  ran  but  too  determinately  towards  the 
lleep  of  endless  reverie,  and  of  dreamy  abstraction  from 
life  and  its  realities. 

Whether  serviceable  or  not,  however,  the  connection 


BOS 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


t>etween  my  guardian  and  myself  was  now  drawing  tl 
its  close. 


A  MANCHESTER  HOME.48 

Some  months  after  my  eleventh  birthday,  Greenhay* 
was  sold,  and  my  mother’s  establishment  —  both  chil¬ 
dren  and  servants  —  was  translated  to  Bath  :  only  that 
for  a  few  months  I  and  one  brother  were  still  left  under 
the  care  of  Mr.  Samuel  H. ;  so  far,  that  is,  as  regarded 
our  education.  Else,  as  regarded  the  luxurious  comforts 
of  a  thoroughly  English  home,  we  became  the  guests,  by 
special  invitation,  of  a  young  married  couple  in  Man¬ 
chester  —  viz.,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  K- - .  ’This  incident, 

though  otherwise  without  results,  I  look  back  upon  with 
feelings  inexpressibly  profound,  as  a  jewelly  parenthesis 
of  pathetic  happiness  —  such  as  emerges  but  once  in  any 
man’s  life.  Mr.  K.  was  a  young  and  rising  American 
merchant ;  by  which  I  mean,  that  he  was  an  Englishman 
who  exported  to  the  United  States.  He  had  married 
about  three  years  previously  a  pretty  and  amiable  young 
woman,  well  educated,  and  endowed  with  singular  com¬ 
pass  of  intellect.  But  the  distinguishing  feature  in  tliia 
household  was  the  spirit  of  love  which,  under  the  benign 
superintendence  of  the  mistress,  diffused  itself  through 
*11  its  members. 

The  late  Dr.  Arnold  of  Rugby,  amongst  many  novel 
ideas,  which  found  no  welcome  even  with  his  friends,  in- 


*  “  Greenhay :  ”  —  A  country-house  built  by  my  father;  and  at  th« 
ame  of  its  foundation  (say  in  1791  or  1792)  separated  from  the  last 
mtskirts  of  Manchester  by  an  entire  mile  ;  but  now,  and  for  many  a 
fear,  overtaken  by  the  hasty  strides  of  this  great  city,  and  long  find 
1  presume)  absorbed  into  its  mighty  uproar. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


309 


listed  earnestly  and  often  upon  this  —  viz.,  that  a  great 
danger  was  threatening  our  social  system  in  Great  Brit¬ 
ain,  from  the  austere  separation  existing  between  our 
educated  and  our  working  classes  ;  and  that  a  more  con¬ 
ciliatory  style  of  intercourse  between  these  two  bisec¬ 
tions  of  our  social  body  must  be  established,  or  else  — 
a  tremendous  revolution.  This  is  not  the  place  to  dis¬ 
cuss  so  large  a  question  ;  and  I  shall  content  myself  with 
making  two  remarks.  The  first  is  this  —  that,  although 
a  change  of  the  sort  contemplated  by  Dr.  Arnold  might, 
if  considered  as  an  operative  cause,  point  forward  to 
some  advantages,  on  the  other  hand,  if  considered  as  an 
effect,  it  points  backward  to  a  less  noble  constitution  of 
society  by  much  than  we  already  enjoy.  Those  nations 
whose  upper  classes  speak  paternally  and  caressingly  to 
the  working  classes,  and  to  servants  in  particular,  do  so 
because  they  speak  from  the  lofty  stations  of  persons  hav¬ 
ing  civil  rights  to  those  who  have  none.  Two  centuries 
back,  when  a  military  chieftain  addressed  his  soldiers  as 
“  my  children ,”  he  did  so  because  he  was  an  irresponsi¬ 
ble  despot  exercising  uncontrolled  powers  of  life  and 
death.  From  the  moment  when  legal  rights  have  been 
won  for  the  poorest  classes,  inevitable  respect  on  the 
nart  of  the  higher  classes  extinguishes  forever  the  affec¬ 
tionate  style  which  belongs  naturally  to  the  state  of  pu¬ 
pilage  or  infantine  oondage. 

That  is  my  first  remark  :  my  second  is  this  —  that 
die  change  advocated  by  Dr.  Arnold,  whether  promising 
or  not,  is  practically  impossible  ;  or  possible,  I  should 
<ay  through  one  sole  channel  —  viz.,  that  of  domestic 
servitude.  There  only  do  the  two  classes  concerned 
*ome  hourly  into  contact.  On  that  stage  only  thej 


BIO 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


meet  without  intrusion  upon  each  other.  There  only  it 
an  opening  for  change.  And  a  wise  mistress,  who  pos¬ 
sesses  tact  enough  to  combine  a  gracious  affability  with 
a  self-respect  that  never  slumbers  nor  permits  her  to  de¬ 
scend  into  gossip,  will  secure  the  attachment  of  all 
young  and  impressible  women.  Such  a  mistress  was 
Mrs.  K - .  She  had  won  the  gratitude  of  her  ser¬ 

vants  from  the  first,  by  making  the  amplest  provision 
Cor  their  comfort ;  their  confidence,  by  listening  with 
patience,  and  counselling  with  prudence  ;  and  their  re¬ 
spect,  by  refusing  to  intermeddle  with  gossiping  person¬ 
alities  always  tending  to  slander.  To  this  extent,  per¬ 
haps,  most  mistresses  perhaps  might  follow  her  example. 

But  the  happiness  which  reigned  in  Mrs.  K - ’s  house 

at  this  time  depended  very  much  upon  special  causes. 
All  the  eight  persons  had  the  advantage  of  youth  ;  and 
the  three  young  female  servants  were  under  the  spell  of 
fascination,  such  as  could  rarely  be  counted  on,  from  a 
spectacle  held  up  hourly  before  their  eyes,  that  spectacle 
which  of  all  others  is  the  most  touching  to  womanly 
sensibilities,  and  W'hich  any  one  of  these  servants  might 
hope  without  presumption,  to  realize  for  herself  —  the 
spectacle,  I  mean,  of  a  happy  marriage  union  between 
two  persons,  who  lived  in  harmony  so  absolute  with 
each  other,  as  to  be  independent  of  the  world  outside. 
How  tender  and  self-sufficing  such  a  union  might  be, 
they  saw  with  their  own  eyes.  The  season  was  then 
mid-wincer,  which  of  itself  draws  closer  all  household 
ties.  Their  own  labors,  as  generally  in  respoctabia 
English  services,  were  finished  for  the  most  part  by  twc 
o’clock ;  and  as  the  hours  of  evening  drew  nearer,  when 
the  master’s  return  might  be  looked  for  without  fiui 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OFIUM-EATER. 


3li 


beau:iful  was  the  smile  of  anticipation  upon  the  gentle 
features  of  the  mistress :  even  more  beautiful  the  reflex  of 
that  smile,  half-unconscious,  and  half-repressed,  upon  the 
features  of  the  sympathizing  hand-maidens.  One  child , 
a  little  girl  of  two  years  old,  had  then  crowned  the  hap¬ 
piness  of  the  K - s.  She  naturally  lent  her  person  at 

all  times,  and  apparently  in  all  places  at  once,  to  the  im¬ 
provement  of  the  family  groups.  My  brother  and  my¬ 
self,  who  had  been  trained  from  infancy  to  the  courteoug 
treatment  of  servants,  filled  up  a  vacancy  in  the  gradu¬ 
ated  scale  of  ascending  ages,  and  felt  in  varying  degrees 
the  depths  of  a  peace  which  we  could  not  adequately 
understand  or  appreciate.  Bad  tempers  there  were 
none  amongst  us  ;  nor  any  opening  for  personal  jeal¬ 
ousies  ;  nor,  though  the  privilege  of  our  common  youth, 
either  angry  recollections  breathing  from  the  past,  or 
fretting  anxieties  gathering  from  the  future.  The  spirit 
of  hope  and  the  spirit  of  peace  (so  it  seemed  to  me, 
when  looking  back  upon  this  profound  calm)  had,  for 
their  own  enjoyment,  united  in  a  sisterly  league  to  blow 
a  solitary  bubble  of  visionary  happiness  —  and  to  se¬ 
quester  from  the  unresting  hurricanes  of  life  one  soli¬ 
tary  household  of  eight  persons  within  a  four  months’ 
lull  ,  as  if  within  some  Arabian  tent  on  some  untrodden 
wilderness,  withdrawn  from  human  intrusion,  or  even 
from  knowledge,  by  worlds  of  mist  and  vapor. 

How  deep  was  that  lull !  and  yet,  as  in  a  human  at¬ 
mosphere,  how  frail  ?  Did  the  visionary  bubble  burst 
at  once  ?  Not  so :  but  silently  and  by  measured  steps, 
like  a  dissolving  palace  cf  snow  it  collapsed.  In  the 
superb  expression  of  Shakespeare,  minted  by  himself. 
Mid  drawn  from  his  own  aerial  fancy,  like  a  cloud  it 


812 


ADDIHONS  TO  1HB 


v  dislimned  ;  ”  lost  its  lineaments  by  stealthy  3tej>9. 
ready  the  word  “  'parting  ”  (for  myself  and  my  brother 
were  under  summons  for  Bath)  hoisted  the  fiist  signal 
for  breaking  up.  Next,  and  not  very  long  afterwards, 
came  a  mixed  signal :  alternate  words  of  joy  and  grief— 
marriage  and  death  severed  the  sisterly  union  amongst 
the  young  female  servants.  Then,  thirdly,  but  many  years 
later,  vanished  from  earth,  and  from  peace  the  deepest 
that  can  support  itself  on  earth,  summoned  to  a  far 
deeper  peace,  the  mistress  of  the  household  herself,  to¬ 
gether  with  her  first-born  child.  Some  years  later,  per¬ 
haps  twenty  from  this  time,  as  I  stood  sheltering  myself 
from  rain  in  a  shop  within  the  most  public  street  of 
Manchester,  the  master  of  the  establishment  drew  my 
attention  to  a  gentleman  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
street  —  roaming  along  in  a  reckless  style  of  movement, 
and  apparently  insensible  to  the  notice  which  he  at¬ 
tracted.  “  That,”  said  the  master  of  the  shop,  “  was* 
once  a  leading  merchant  in  our  town  ;  but  he  met  with 
great  commercial  embarrassments.  There  was  no  im« 
peachment  of  his  integrity,  or  (as  I  believe)  of  his  dis¬ 
cretion.  But  what  with  these  commercial  calamities,  and 
deaths  in  his  family,  he  lost  all  hope  ;  and  you  see  what 
sort  of  consolation  it  is  that  he  seeks”  —  meaning  to  say 
that  his  style  of  walking  argued  intoxication.  I  did  not 
think  so.  There  was  a  settled  misery  in  his  eye,  but 
complicated  with  that  an  expression  of  nervous  distrac¬ 
tion,  that,  if  it  should  increase,  would  make  life  an  in¬ 
tolerable  burden.  I  never  saw  him  again,  ajd  thought 
with  horror  of  his  being  called  in  old  age  to  face  the 
fierce  tragedies  of  life.  For  many  reasons,  I  recoiled 
from  forcing  myself  upm  his  notice:  but  I  had  ascer 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


318 


$uned.  some  time  -  previously  to  this  casual  rencounter, 
that  he  and  myself  were  a-t  that  date,  all  that  remained 
of  the  once  joyous  household.  At  present,  and  for  man) 
a  year,  I  am  myself  the  sole  relic  from  that  household 
sanctuary  —  sweet,  solemn,  profound  —  that  concealed, 
as  in  some  ark  floating  on  solitary  seas,  eight  perscns, 
since  called  away,  all  except  myself,  one  after  one*,  to 
that  rest  which  only  could  be  deeper  than  ours  was  then. 

AT  THE  MANCHESTER  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL. 

When  I  left  the  K - s,  I  left  Manchester ;  and  dur¬ 

ing  the  next  three  years  I  was  sent  to  two  very  differ¬ 
ent  schools;  first,  to  a  public  one  —  viz.,  the  Bath 
Grammar  School,  then  and  since  famous  for  its  excel¬ 
lence —  secondly,  to  a  private  school  in  Wiltshire.  At 
the  end  of  the  three  years,  I  found  myself  once  again  in 
Manchester.  I  was  then  fifteen  years  old,  and  a  trifle 
more ;  and  as  it  had  come  to  the  knowledge  of  Mr.  G._ 
a  banker  in  Lincolnshire  (whom  hitherto  I  have  omitted 
to  notice  amongst  my  guardians,  as  the  one  too  genei- 
ally  prevented  from  interfering  by  Lis  remoteness  from 
the  spot,  but  whom  otherwise  I  should  have  recorded 
with  honor,  as  by  much  the  ablest  amongst  them),  that 
tome  pecuniary  advantages  were  attached  to  a  residence 
at  the  Manchester  Grammar  School,  whilst  in  other  re¬ 
spects  that  school  seemed  as  eligible  as  any  other,  he 
had  counselled  my  mother  to  send  me  thither.  In  fact, 
u  three  years’  residence  at  this  school  obtained  an  an¬ 
nual  allowance  for  seven  years  of  nearly  (if  not  quite) 
£50  ;  which  sum,  added  to  my  own  patrimonial  income 
Cl 50,  would  have  made  up  the  annual  £200  ordinarily 
sonsidered  the  proper  allowance  for  an  Oxford  under 


514 


ADDITIONS  TO  THF. 


graduate.  No  objection  arising  from  any  quarter,  this 
plan  was  adopted,  and  soon  afterwards  carried  into 
effect. 

Oto  a  day,  therefore,  it  was  in  the  closing  autumn  (o  i 
rather  in  the  opening  winter)  of  1800  that  my  first  intro¬ 
duction  took  place  to  the  Manchester  Grammar  School. 
The  school-room  showed  already  in  its  ample  propor¬ 
tions  some  hint  of  its  preteusions  as  an  endowed  school, 
or  school  of  that  class  which  I  believe  peculiar  to  Eng¬ 
land.  To  this  limited  extent  had  the  architectural  sense 
of  power  been  timidly  and  parsimoniously  invoked.  Be¬ 
yond  that,  nothing  had  been  attempted ;  and  the  dreary 
expanse  of  whitewashed  walls,  that  at  so  small  a  cost 
might  have  been  embellished  by  plaster-of-paris  friezes 
and  large  medallions,  illustrating  to  the  eye  of  the 
youthful  student  the  most  memorable  glorifications  cf 
literature  —  these  were  bare  as  the  walls  of  a  poor-house 
or  a  lazaretto  ;  buildings  whose  functions,  as  thoroughly 
sad  and  gloomy,  the  mind  recoils  from  drawing  into  re¬ 
lief  by  sculpture  or  painting.  But  this  building  was 
dedicated  to  purposes  that  were  noble.  The  naked  walls 
clamored  for  decoration  :  and  how  easily  might  tablets 
have  been  moulded  —  exhibiting  (as  a  first  homage  to 
literature)  Athens,  with  the  wisdom  of  Athens,  in  the 
person  of  Pisistratus,  concentrating  the  general  energies 
upon  the  revisal  and  the  re-casting  of  the  “  Iliad.”  Or 
(second)  the  Athenian  captives  in  Sicily,  within  the 
ifth  century  b.  c.,  as  winning  noble  mercy  for  them¬ 
selves  by  some 

“  Repeated  air 
Of  sad  Elect! a’s  poet.” 

Such,  and  so  sudden,  had  been  the  oblivion  of  earthly 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


S15 


passions  wrought  by  the  contemporary  poet  of  Athena 
that  in  a  moment  the  wrath  of  Sicily,  with  all  its  billo  ws, 
ran  down  into  a  heavenly  calm  ;  and  he  that  coaid 
plead  for  his  redemption  no  closer  relation  to  Euripidea 
than  the  accident  of  recalling  some  scatterings  from  his 
divine  verses,  suddenly  found  his  chains  dropping  to  the 
ground  ;  and  himself,  that  in  the  morning  had  riseii  a 
despairing  slave  in  a  stone-quarrv,  translated  at  once  as 
a  favored  brother  into  a  palace  of  Syracuse.  Or,  again, 
how  easy  to  represent  (third j  “  the  great  Emathian 
conqueror,”  that  in  the  very  opening  of  his  career, 
whilst  visiting  Thebes  with  vengeance,  nevertheless  re¬ 
lented  at  the  thought  of  literature,  and 

“  Bade  spare 

The  house  of  Pindarus,  when  temple  and  tower 

Went  to  the  ground.” 

Alexander  might  have  been  represented  amongst  the  col¬ 
onnades  of  some  Persian  capital  —  Ecbatana  or  Babylon, 
Susa  or  Persepolis  —  in  the  act  of  receiving  from 
Greece,  as  a  nuzzur  more  awful  than  anything  within 
the  gift  of  the  u  barbaric  East,”  a  jewelled  casket  con¬ 
taining  the  “  Iliad  ”  and  the  “  Odyssey  ;  ”  creations  that 
already  have  lived  almost  as  long  as  the  Pyramids. 

Puritanically  bald  and  odious  therefore,  in  my  eyes, 
was  the  hall  up  which  my  guardian  and  myself  paced 
solemnly  —  though  not  Miltonically  “  riding  up  to  the 
Soldan’s  chair,”  yet,  in  fact,  within  a  more  limited 
kingdom,  advancing  to  the  chair  of  a  more  absolute 
iespot.  This  potentate  was  the  head-master,  or  archi 
itdfiscalus,  of  the  Manchester  Grammar  School  ;  and 
v'ftat  senool  wa3  variously  distinguished.  Jt  was  0 
Mieient,  having  in  fact  been  founded  by  a  bishop  of 


ADDITIONS  TO  TH» 


Exeter  in  an  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  so  m 
to  be  now,  in  1856,  more  than  330  years  old;  (2.)  it 
was  rich,  and  was  annually  growing  richer ;  and  (3.)  it 
was  dignified  by  a  beneficial  relation  to  the  magnificent 
University  of  Oxford. 

The  head-master  at  that  time  was  Mr.  Charles  Law- 
son.  In  former  editions  of  this  work,  I  created  him  a 
doctor ;  my  object  being  to  evade  too  close  an  approach 
to  the  realities  of  the  case,  and  consequently  to  person¬ 
alities,  which  (though  indifferent  to  myself)  would  have 
been  in  some  cases  displeasing  to  others.  A  doctor, 
however,  Mr  Lawson  was  not ;  nor  in  the  account  of 
law  a  clergyman.  Yet  most  people,  governed  uncon¬ 
sciously  by  the  associations  surrounding  their  composite 
idea  of  a  dignified  schoolmaster,  invested  him  with  the 
clerical  character.  And  in  reality  he  had  taken  deacon's 
orders  in  the  Church  of  England.  But  not  the  less  he 
held  himself  to  be  a  layman,  and  was  addressed  as  such 
by  all  his  correspondents  of  rank,  who  might  be  sup¬ 
posed  best  to  understand  the  technical  rules  of  English 
etiquette.  Etiquette  in  such  cases  cannot  entirely  detach 
itself  from  law.  Now,  in  English  law,  as  was  shown  in 
Horne  Tooke’s  case,  the  rule  is,  once  a  clergyman ,  and 
always  a  clergyman.  The  sacred  character  with  which 
ordination  clothes  a  man  is  indelible.  But,  on  the  other 
sand,  who  is  a  clergyman?  Not  he  that  has  taken 
simply  the  initial  orders  of  a  deacon,  so  at  least  I  have 
heard,  but  he  that  has  taken  the  second  and  full  ordera 

a  priest.  If  otherwise,  then  there  was  a  great  mistake 
*Mirent.  amongst  Mr.  Lawson’s  friends  in  addressing  him 

an  esquire. 

Sqiaire  or  not  a  squire,  however,  parson  or  not  a  par 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


317 


son  —  whether  sacred  or  profane  —  Mr.  Lawson  was  is 
tome  degree  interesting  by  his  position  and  his  recluse 
habits.  Life  was  over  with  him,  for  its  hopes  and  for 
its  trials.  Or  at  most  one  trial  yet  awaited  him,  which 
was  —  to  fight  with  a  painful  malady,  and  fighting  to 
die.  lie  still  had  his  dying  to  do  :  he  was  in  arrear 
as  to  that :  else  all  was  finished.  It  struck  me  (but, 
with  such  limited  means  for  judging,  I  might  easily  be 
wrong)  that  his  understanding  was  of  a  narrow  order. 
But  that  did  not  disturb  the  interest  which  surrounded 
him  now  in  his  old  age  (probably  seventy-five,  or  more), 
nor  make  any  drawback  from  the  desire  I  had  to  spell 
backwards  and  re-compose  the  text  of  his  life.  What 
had  been  his  fortunes  in  this  world  ?  Had  they  trav¬ 
elled  upwards  or  downwards  ?  What  triumphs  had  he 
enjoyed  in  the  sweet  and  solemn  cloisters  of  Oxford? 
What  mortifications  in  the  harsh  world  outside  ?  Two 
only  had  survived  in  the  malicious  traditions  of  “  his 
friends.”  He  was  a  Jacobite  (as  were  so  many  amongst 
my  dear  Lancastrian  compatriots) ;  had  drunk  the  Pre¬ 
tender’s  health,  and  had  drunk  it  in  company  with  that 
Dr.  Byrom  who  had  graced  the  symposium  by  the  famous 
equivocating  impromptu  *  to  the  health  of  that  prince. 

*  “  Equivocating  impromptu :  ”  —  The  party  had  gathered  in  a  tu¬ 
multuary  way;  so  that  some  Capulets  had  mingled  with  the  Men- 
(agues,  one  of  whom  called  upon  Dr.  Byrom  to  drink  The  King ,  God 
Mess  him  !  and  Confusion  to  the  Pretender  !  Upon  which  the  doctoi 
lang  out  — 

“God  bless  the  King,  of  church  and  state  defendei , 

God  bless  (no  harm  in  blessing)  the  Pretender! 

But  who  Pretender  is,  and  who  the  King  — 

God  b.ess  us  all.  that ’s  quite  another  thing.” 

Dr.  Byrom  was  otherwise  famous  than  as  a  Jacobite-'  riz.,  •»  th® 


S18 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


Mr.  Lawson  had  therefore  been  obliged  to  witness  the 
final  prostration  of  his  political  party.  That  was  his 
earliest  mortification.  His  second,  about  seven  years 
later,  was,  that  he  had  been  jilted ;  and  with  circum¬ 
stances  (at  least  so  I  heard)  of  cruel  scorn.  ‘Was  it  that 
he  had  interpreted  in  a  sense  too  flattering  for  himself 
ambiguous  expressions  of  favor  in  the  lady  ?  or  that  she 
in  cruel  caprice  had  disowned  the  hopes  which  she  had 
authorized  ?  However  this  might  be,  half  a  century  of 
soothing  and  reconciling  years  had  cicatrized  the  wounds 
of  Mr.  Lawson’s  heart.  The  lady  of  1752,  if  living  in 
1800,  must  be  furiously  wrinkled.  And  a  strange  meta¬ 
physical  question  arises  :  Whether,  when  the  object  of 
an  impassioned  love  has  herself  faded  into  a  shadow,  the 
fiery  passion  itself  can  still  survive  as  an  abstraction, 
still  mourn  over  its  wrongs,  still  clamor  for  redress.  I 
have  heard  of  such  cases.  In  Wordsworth’s  poem  ol 
“  Ruth  ”  (which  was  founded,  as  I  happen  to  know,  upon 
facts),  it  is  recorded  as  an  affecting  incident,  that,  some 
months  after  the  first  frenzy  of  her  disturbed  mind  had 
given  way  to  medical  treatment,  and  had  lapsed  into  a 
gentler  form  of  lunacy,  she  was  dismissed  from  confine¬ 
ment  ;  and  upon  finding  herself  uncontrolled  among  the 
pastoral  scenes  where  she  played  away  her  childhood, 
she  gradually  fell  back  to  the  original  habits  of  her 
life  whilst  yet  undisturbed  by  sorrow.  Something  simi¬ 
lar  had  happened  to  Mr.  Lawson  ;  and  some  time  after 

author  of  a  very  elaborate  shorthand,  which  (according  to  some  who 
have  examined  it)  rises  even  to  a  philosophic  dignity.  David  Hartley 
(a  particular  said  of  it,  “  That  if  ever  a  philosophic  language  (as  pro- 
lected  by  Bishop  Wilkins,  by  Leibnitz,  &c.)  should  be  brought  to  bear 
n  that  case  Dr.  Byrom’s  work  would  furnish  the  proper  character  fc f 
ts  notat.'oa.” 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


31$ 


flis  first  shock,  amongst  other  means  for  effacing  that 
deep-grooved  impression,  he  had  labored  to  replace  him¬ 
self,  as  much  as  was  possible,  in  the  situation  of  a  col¬ 
lege  student.  In  this  effort  he  was  assisted  considerably 
by  the  singular  arrangement  of  the  house  attached  to  hi3 
official  station.  For  an  English  house  it  was  altogether 
an  oddity,  being,  in  fact,  built  upon  a  Roman  plan.  All 
the  rooms  on  both  stories  had  their  windows  looking 
down  upon  a  little  central  court.  This  court  was  quad 
rangular,  but  so  limited  in  its  dimensions,  that  by  a  Ro¬ 
man  it  would  have  been  regarded  as  the  impluvium :  for 
Mr.  Lawson,  however,  with  a  little  exertion  of  fancy,  it 
transmuted  itself  into  a  college  quadrangle.  Here, 
therefore,  were  held  the  daily  “  callings-over,”  at  which 
every  student  was  obliged  to  answer  upon  being  named. 
And  thus  the  unhappy  man,  renewing  continually  the 
fancy  that  he  was  still  standing  in  an  Oxford  quadrangle, 
perhaps  cheated  himself  into  the  belief  that  all  had 
been  a  dream  which  concerned  the  caprices  of  the  lady, 
aud  the  lady  herself  a  phantom.  College  usages  also, 
which  served  to  strengthen  this  fanciful  alibi  —  such,  for 
instance,  as  the  having  two  plates  arranged  before  him 
at  dinner  (one  for  the  animal,  the  other  for  the  vegeta¬ 
ble  food)  —  were  reproduced  in  Millgate.  One  sole 
luxury,  also  somewhat  costly,  which,  like  most  young  men 
of  easy  income,  he  had  allowed  himself  at  Oxford,  was 
now  retained  long  after  it  had  become  practically  use¬ 
less.  This  was  a  hunter  for  himself,  and  another  lor  his 
g  oom,  which  he  continued  to  keep,  in  spite  ot  the  in¬ 
creasing  war-taxes,  many  a  year  after  he  had  almost 
ceased  to  ride.  Once  in  three  or  (our  months  he  would 
lave  the  ho-ses  saddled  and  brought  out.  Then,  witlr 


320 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


considerable  effort,  lie  swung  himself  into  the  saddla 
moved  off  at  a  quiet  amble,  and,  in  about  fifteen  of 
twenty  minutes,  might  be  seen  returning  from  an  excur 
sion  of  two  miles,  under  the  imagination  that  he  had 
laid  in  a  stock  of  exercise  sufficient  for  another  period 
of  a  hundred  days.  Meantime  Mr.  Lawson  had  sought 
his  main  consolation  in  the  great  classics  of  elder  days* 
His  senior  alumni  were  always  working  their  way 
through  some  great  scenic  poet  that  had  shaken  the 
stage  of  Athens  ;  and  more  than  one  of  his  classes, 
never  ending,  still  beginning,  were  daily  solacing  him 
with  the  gayeties  of  Horace,  in  his  Epistles  or  in  his  Sa¬ 
tires.  The  Horatian  jests  indeed  to  him  never  grew 
old.  On  coming  to  the  plagosus  Orbilius ,  or  any  other 
sally  of  pleasantry,  he  still  threw  himself  back  in  his 
arm-chair,  as  he  had  done  through  fifty  years,  with  what 
seemed  heart-shaking  bursts  of  sympathetic  merriment. 
Mr.  Lawson,  indeed,  could  afford  to  be  sincerely  mirth¬ 
ful  over  the  word  plagosus.  There  are  gloomy  tyrants, 
exulting  in  the  discipline  of  fear,  to  whom  and  to  whose 
pupils  this  word  must  call  up  remembrances  too  degrad¬ 
ing  for  any  but  affected  mirth.  Allusions  that  are  too 
fearfully  personal  cease  to  be  subjects  of  playfulness. 
Sycophancy  only  it  is  that  laughs  ;  and  the  artificial 
merriment  is  but  the  language  of  shrinking  and  grovel¬ 
ling  deprecation.  Different,  indeed,  was  the  condition  of 
the  Manchester  Grammar  School.  It  was  honorable 
both  to  the  masters  and  the  upper  boys,  through  whom 
>nly  such  a  result  was  possible,  that  in  that  school,  dur¬ 
ing  my  knowledge  of  it  (viz.,  during  the  closing  year  of 
5he  eighteenth  century,  and  the  two  opening  years  o* 
the  nineteenth),  all  punishments,  that  appealed  to  th« 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


821 


lease  of  bodily  pain,  had  fallen  into  disuse  ;  and  this  as 
&  period  long  before  any  public  agitation  had  begun  to 
ir  in  that  direction.  How  then  was  discipline  main 
tamed  ?  It  was  maintained  through  the  self-discipline 
of  the  senior  boys,  and  through  the  efficacy  of  their  ex¬ 
ample,  combined  with  their  system  of  rules.  Noble  are 
the  impulses  of  opening  manhood,  where  they  are  not 
utterly  ignoble :  at  that  period,  I  mean,  when  the  poetic 
sense  begins  to  blossom,  and  when  boys  are  first  made 
sensible  of  the  paradise  that  lurks  in  female  smiles. 
Had  the  school  been  entirely  a  day-school,  too  probable 
it  is  that  the  vulgar  brawling  tendencies  of  boys  left  to 
themselves  would  have  prevailed.  But  it  happened  that 
the  elder  section  of  the  school  —  those  on  the  brink  of 
manhood,  and  by  incalculable  degrees  the  more  scholar¬ 
like  section,  all  who  read,  meditated,  or  began  to  kindle 
into  the  love  of  Lterature  —  were  boarders  in  Mr.  Law¬ 
son’s  house.  The  students,  therefore,  of  the  house  car¬ 
ried  an  overwhelming  influence  into  the  school.  They 
were  bound  together  by  links  of  brotherhood  ;  whereas 
the  day-scholars  were  disconnected.  Over  and  above 
this  it  happened  luckily  that  there  was  no  playground, 
no'  the  smallest,  attached  to  the  school;  that  is,  none 
was  attached  to  the  upper  or  grammar  school.  But 
there  was  also,  and  resting  on  the  same  liberal  endow¬ 
ment,  a  lower  school,  where  the  whole  machinery  of 
teaching  was  applied  to  the  lowest  mechanical  accom¬ 
plishments  of  reading  and  writing.  The  hall  in  which 
this  servile  business  was  conducted  ran  under  the  upper 
irhool;  it  was,  therefore,  I  presume,  a  subterraneous 
duplicate  of  the  upper  hall.  And,  since  the  upper  rose 
jsnly  by  two  or  three  feet  above  the  level  of  the  neigh' 

21 


322 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


boring  streets,  the  lower  school  should  naturally  nava 
been  at  a  great  depth  below  these  streets.  In  that  cas^ 
it  would  be  a  dark  crypt,  such  as  we  see  under  sonic 
cathedrals  ;  and  it  would  have  argued  a  singular  want 
of  thoughtfulness  in  the  founder  to  have  laid  one  part 
of  his  establishment  under  an  original  curse  of  darkness. 
As  the  access  to  this  plebeian  school  lay  downwards 
through  long  flights  of  steps,  I  never  found  surplus  en¬ 
ergy  enough  for  investigating  the  problem.  But,  as  the 
ground  broke  away  precipitously  at  that  point  into 
lower  levels,  I  presume,  upon  consideration,  that  the 
subterranean  crypt  will  be  found  open  on  one  side  to 
visitations  from  sun  and  moon.  So  that,  for  this  base 
mechanic  school  there  may,  after  all,  have  been  a  play¬ 
ground.  But  for  ours  in  the  upper  air,  I  repeat,  there 
was  none ;  not  so  much  as  would  have  bleached  a  lady’s 
pocket-handkerchief ;  and  this  one  defect  carried  along 
with  it  unforeseen  advantages. 

Lord  Bacon  it  is  who  notices  the  subtle  policy  which 
may  lurk  in  the  mere  external  figure  of  a  table.  A 
square  table,  having  an  undeniable  head  and  foot,  two 
polar  extremities  of  what  is  highest  and  lowest,  a  peri- 
lelion  and  an  aphelion,  together  with  equatorial  sides, 
teens  at  a  glance  a  large  career  to  ambition ;  whilst  a 
circular  table  sternly  represses  all  such  aspiring  dreams, 
and  so  does  a  triangular  table.  Yet  if  the  triangle 
should  be  right-angled,  then  the  Lucifer  seated  at  the 
right  angle  might  argue  that  he  subtended  all  the  tenants 
if  the  hypothenuse ;  being,  therefore,  as  much  nobler 
than  they,  as  Atlas  was  nobler  than  the  globe  which  ha 
tarried.  It  was  by  the  way,  some  arrangement  of  tin  a 
VAtnre  which  constituted  the  original  feature  of  distinc 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


32b 


lion  in  Jo.  m  o\  Groat’s  house,  and  not  at  all  (as  most 
people  suppose)  the  high  northern  latitude  of  this  house. 
John,  it  seems,  finished  the  feuds  for  precedency  —  not 
by  legislating  this  way  or  that — but  by  cutting  away 
die  possibility  of  such  feuds  through  the  assistance  of  a 
round  table.  The  same  principle  must  have  guided 
King  Arthur  amongst  his  knights  ;  Charlemagne 
amongst  his  paladins  ;  and  sailors  in  their  effectual  dis¬ 
tribution  of  the  peril  attached  to  a  mutinous  remon¬ 
strance  by  the  admirable  device  of  a  “  round-robin.” 
Even  two  little  girls,  as  Harrington  remarks  in  his 
“  Oceana,”  have  oftentimes  hit  upon  an  expedient 
through  pure  mother-wit,  more  effectual  than  all  the 
schools  of  philosophy  could  have  suggested,  for  insuring 
the  impartial  division  of  an  orange ;  which  expedient  is, 
that  either  of  the  two  shall  divide,  but  then  that  the 
other  shall  have  the  right  of  choice.  “  You  divide,  and  1 
choose.”  Such  is  the  formula  ;  and  an  angel  could  not 
devise  a  more  absolute  guarantee  for  the  equity  of  the 
division,  than  by  thus  forcing  the  divider  to  become  the 
inheritor  of  any  possible  disadvantages  that  he  may  have 
succeeded  in  creating  by  his  own  act  of  division.  In  all 
these  cases  one  seemingly  trivial  precaution  opens,  in 
the  next  stage,  into  a  world  of  irresistible  consequences. 
And  in  our  case,  an  effect  not  less  disproportionate  fol¬ 
lowed  out  of  that  one  accident,  apparently  so  slight,  that 
we  had  no  playground.  We  of  the  seniority,  who  by 
houghtfulness,  and  the  conscious  dignity  of  dealing 
argely  with  literature,  were  already  indisposed  to  boy¬ 
ish  sports,  found,  through  the  defect  of  a  playground, 
shat  our  choice  and  our  pride  were  also  our  necessity 
Even  the  proudest  of  us  benefited  by  that  coercion  ;  for 


524 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


many  would  else  have  sold  their  privilege  of  pride  foa 
an  hour’s  amusement,  and  have  become,  at  least,  occa 
lional  conformists.  A  day  more  than  usually  fine,  a 
trial  of  skill  more  than  usually  irritating  to  the  sense  ol 
special  superiority,  would  have  seduced  most  of  us  in 
the  end  into  the  surrender  of  our  exclusiveness,  India 
criminate  familiarity  would  have  followed  as  an  uncon¬ 
trollable  result ;  since  to  mingle  with  others  in  common 
acts  of  business  may  leave  the  sense  of  reserve  undis¬ 
turbed  :  but  all  reserve  gives  way  before  a  common  inter¬ 
course  in  pleasure.  As  it  was,  what  with  our  confedera¬ 
tion  through  house-membership,  with  what  our  reciprocal 
sympathies  in  the  problems  suggested  by  books,  we  had 
become  a  club  of  boys  (amongst  whom  might  be  four  or 
five  that  were  even  young  men,  counting  eighteen  or 
nineteen  years),  altogether  as  thoughtful  and  as  self-re¬ 
specting  as  can  often  exist  even  amongst  adults.  Even 
the  subterraneous  school  contributed  something  to  our 
self-esteem.  It  formed  a  subordinate  section  of  our  own 
establishment,  that  kept  before  our  eyes,  by  force  of 
contrast,  the  dignity  inherent  in  our  own  constitution. 
Its  object  was  to  master  humble  accomplishments  that 
were  within  the  reach  of  mechanic  efforts :  everything 
mechanic  is  limited;  whereas  we  felt  that  our  object, 
even  if  our  name  of  grammar  school  presented  that  ob¬ 
ject  in  what  seemed  too  limited  a  shape,  was  substantially 
noble,  and  tended  towards  the  infinite.  But  in  no  long 
time  I  came  too  see  that,  as  to  the  name ,  we  were  all  oi 
us  under  a  mistake.  Being  asked  what  a  gramma? 
school  indicates,  what  it  professes  to  teach,  there  i* 
icarcely  any  man  who  would  not  reply,  “  Teach  ?  why 
it  teaches  grammar :  what  else  ?  ”  But  this  is  a  mia 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


325 


i^ake:  as  I  have  elsewhere  explained,  grammatica  in  this 
combination  does  not  mean  grammar  (though  grammar 
also  obeys  the  movements  of  a  most  subtle  philosophy), 
but  literature.  Look  into  Suetonius.  Those  “  gram - 
matici ”  whom  he  memorializes  as  an  order  of  men 
flocking  to  Rome  in  the  days  of  the  Flavian  family, 
were  not  grammarians  at  all,  but  what  the  French  by  a 
comprehensive  name  style  litterateurs  —  that  is  they 
were  men  who  (1.)  studied  literature  ;  (2.)  who  taught 
literature;  (3.)  who  practically  produced  literature. 
And,  upon  the  whole,  grammatica  is  perhaps  the  least 
objectionable  Latin  equivalent  for  our  word  literature. 

Having  thus  sketched  the  characteristic  points  distin¬ 
guishing  the  school  and  the  presiding  master  (for  of 
masters,  senior  and  junior,  there  were  four  in  this  upper 
school),  I  return  to  my  own  inaugural  examination.-  On 
this  day,  memorable  to  myself,  as  furnishing  the  starting- 
point  for  so  long  a  series  of  days,  saddened  by  haughty 
obstinacy  on  one  side,  made  effective  by  folly  on  the 
other,  no  sooner  had  my  guardian  retired,  than  Mr.  Law- 
eon  produced  from  his  desk  a  volume  of  the  “  Specta¬ 
tor,”  and  instructed  me  to  throw  into  as  good  Latin  as  I 
could  some  paper  of  Steele’s  —  not  the  whole,  but  per¬ 
haps  a  third  part.  No  better  exercise  could  have  been 
devised  for  testing  the  extent  of  my  skill  as  a  Latinist. 
And  here  I  ought  to  make  an  explanation.  In  the 
previous  edition  of  these  “  Confessions,”  writing  some¬ 
times  too  rapidly,  and  with  little  precision  in  cases  ol 
uttle  importance,  I  conveyed  an  impression  which  I  had 
not  designed,  with  regard  to  tne  true  nature  of  my  pre¬ 
tensions  as  a  Grecian  ;  and  something  of  the  same 
torre.ction  will  apply  to  that  narrower  accomplish* 


326 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


ment  which  was  the  subject  of  my  present  examination 
Neither  in  Greek  nor  in  Latin  was  my  knowledge  very 
extensive ;  my  age  made  that  impossible  ;  and  especially 
because  in  those  days  there  were  no  decent  guides  through 
the  thorny  jungles  of  the  Latin  language,  far  less  of  the 
Greek.  When  I  mention  that  the  Port  Royal  Greek 
Grammar  translated  by  Dr.  Nugent  was  about  the  best 
key  extant  in  English  to  the  innumerable  perplexities  of 
Greek  diction  ;  and  that,  for  the  res  metrica,  Morell’a 
valuable  “  Thesaurus,”  having  then  never  been  reprinted, 
was  rarely  to  be  seen,  the  reader  will  conclude  that  a 
schoolboy’s  knowledge  of  Greek  could  not  be  other  than 
slender.  Slender  indeed  was  mine.  Yet  stop !  what 
was  slender?  Simply  my  knowledge  of  Greek  ;  for  that 
knowledge  stretches  by  tendency  to  the  infinite  ;  but  not 
therefore  my  command  of  Greek.  The  knowledge  of 
Greek  must  always  hold  some  gross  proportion  to  the 
time  spent  upon  it,  probably,  therefore,  to  the  age  of  the 
student ;  but  the  command  over  a  language,  the  power 
of  adapting  it  plastically  to  the  expression  of  your  own 
thoughts,  is  almost  exclusively  a  gift  of  nature,  and  has 
very  little  connection  with  time.  Take  the  supreme 
trinity  of  Greek  scholars  that  flourished  between  the 
English  Revolution  of  1688  and  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  —  which  trinity  I  suppose  to  be  con¬ 
fessedly,  Bentley,  Valckenaer,  and  Porson  —  such  are 
the  men,  it  will  be  generally  fancied,  whose  aid  should  be 
mvoked,  in  the  event  of  our  needing  some  eloquent 
Greek  inscription  on  a  public  monument.  I  am  of  a 
different  opinion.  The  greatest  scholars  have  usually 
proved  to  be  the  poorest  composers  in  either  of  the 
classic  languages.  Sixty  years  ago,  we  had,  from  frmr 


CONFESSIONS  01  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


327 


Kparate  doctors,  four  separate  Greek  versions  of  “  Gray’a 
Elegy,”  all  unworthy  of  the  national  scholarship.  Yet 
one  of  these  doctors  was  actually  P orson’s  predecessor 
in  the  Greek  chair  at  Cambridge.  But  as  he  (Dr. 
Cooke)  was  an  obscure  man,  take  an  undeniable  Grecian, 
of  punctilious  precision  —  viz.,  Richard  Dawes,  the  well- 
known  author  of  the  “  Miscellanea  Critica.”  This  man, 
a  very  martinet  in  the  delicacies  of  Greek  composition, 
—  and  who  should  have  been  a  Greek  scholar  of  some 
mark,  since  often  enough  he  flew  at  the  throat  of  Rich¬ 
ard  Bentley,  —  wrote  and  published  a  specimen  of  a 
Greek  “  Paradise  Lost,”  and  also  two  most  sycophantic 
idyls  addressed  to  George  II.  on  the  death  of  his 
“  august  ”  papa.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  anything 
meaner  in  conception  or  more  childish  in  expression 
than  these  attempts.  Now,  against  them  I  will  stake  in 
competition  a  copy  of  iambic  verses  by  a  boy,  who  died, 
I  believe,  at  sixteen  —  viz.,  a  son  of  Mr.  Pitt’s  tutor, 
Tomline,  Bishop  of  Winchester.*  Universally  I  contend 
that  the  faculty  of  clothing  the  thoughts  in  a  Greek 
dress  is  a  function  of  natural  sensibility,  in  a  great  de¬ 
gree  disconnected  from  the  extent  or  the  accuracy  of  the 
writer’s  grammatical  skill  in  Greek. 

*  u  A  copy  of  iambic  verses  :  ” — They  will  be  found  in  the  work  oo 
the  Greek  article,  by  Middleton,  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  who  was  the 
boy’s  tutor.  On  this  occasion  T  would  wish  to  observe,  that  verses 
ike  Dawes’s,  meant  to  mimic  Homer  or  Theocritus,  or  more  generally 
dactylic  hexameters,  are  perfectly  useless  as  tests  of  power  to  think 
freely  in  Greek.  If  such  verses  are  examined,  it  will  be  found  that 
the  orchestral  magnificence  of  ine  metre,  .aid  the  sonorous  cadence 
■tf  each  separate  line,  absolutely  forces  upon  the  thoughts  a  mere  ne¬ 
cessity  'f  being  discontinuous.  From  this  signal  defect  only  iambic 
•enarii  are  free  ;  this  metre  assessing  a  powei  of  plastic  interfusion 
similar  in  kind,  though  inferior  in  degree,  to  the  English  blank  vera I 
arhen  Miltonically  written 


$28 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


These  explanations  are  too  long.  The  reader  will 
understand,  as  their  sum,  that  what  I  needed  in  such  a 
case  was,  not  so  much  a  critical  familiarity  with  the 
syntax  of  the  language,  or  a  copia  verborum ,  or  grea1 
agility  in  reviewing  the  relations  of  one  idea  to  another 
• —  so  as  to  present  modern  and  unclassical  objects  under 
such  aspects  as  might  suggest  periphrases  in  substitution 
for  direct  names,  where  names  could  not  be  had,  and 
everywhere  to  color  my  translation  with  as  rich  a  display 
of  idiomatic  forms  as  the  circumstances  of  the  case  would 
allow.  I  succeeded,  and  beyond  my  expection.  For 
once  —  being  the  first  time  that  he  had  been  known  to 
do  such  a  thing,  but  also  the  very  last  —  Mr.  Lawson 
did  absolutely  pay  me  a  compliment.  And  with  another 
compliment  more  than  verbal  he  crowned  his  gracious 
condescensions  —  viz.,  with  my  provisional  instalment 
in  his  highest  class  ;  not  the  highest  at  that  moment, 
since  there  was  one  other  class  above  us  ;  but  this  other 
was  on  the  wing  for  Oxford  within  some  few  weeks  ; 
which  change  being  accomplished,  we.  (viz.,  I  and  two 
others)  immediately  moved  up  into  the  supreme  place. 

Two  or  three  days  after  this  examination  —  viz.,  on  the 
Sunday  following  —  I  transferred  myself  to  head-quar¬ 
ters  at  Mr.  Lawson’s  house.  About  nine  o’clock  in  the 
evening,  I  was  conducted  by  a  servant  up  a  short  flight 
of  stairs,  through  a  series  of  gloomy  and  unfurnished 
little  rooms,  having  small  windows  but  no  doors,  to  the 
common  room  (as  in  Oxford  it  would  technically  bo 
railed)  of  the  senior  boys.  Everything  had  combined 
to  depress  me.  To  leave  the  society  of  accomplished 
vomer.  —  that  was  already  a  signal  privation.  The 
reason  besides  was  rainy,  which  in  itself  is  a  sure  sourc* 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


32$ 


depression ;  and  the  forlorn  aspect  of  the  rooms  com 
pleted  my  dejection.  But  the  scene  changed  as  the  door 
was  thrown  open  :  faces  kindling  with  animation  became 
visible  ;  and  from  a  company  of  boys,  numbering  sis  • 
teen  or  eighteen,  scattered  about  the  room,  two  or  three, 
whose  a^e  entitled  them  to  the  rank  of  leaders,  cams 
forward  to  receive  me  with  a  courtesy  which  I  had  not 
looked  for.  The  grave  kindness  and  the  absolute  sin¬ 
cerity  of  their  manner  impressed  me  most  favorably.  I 
had  lived  familiarly  with  boys  gathered  from  all  quar¬ 
ters  of  the  island  at  the  Bath  Grammar  School ;  and  for 
some  time  (when  visiting  Lord  Altamont  at  Eton)  with 
boys  of  the  highest  aristocratic  pretensions.  At  Bath 
and  at  Eton,  though  not  equally,  there  prevailed  a  tone 
of  higher  polish ;  and  in  the  air,  speech,  deportment  of 
the  majority  could  be  traced  at  once  a  premature  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  world.  They  had  indeed  the  advantage 
over  my  new  friends  in  graceful  self-possession ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  best  of  them  suffered  by  com¬ 
parison  with  these  Manchester  boys  in  the  qualities  of 
visible  self-restraint  and  of  self-respect.  At  Eton,  high 
rank  was  distributed  pretty  liberally  ;  but  in  the  Man¬ 
chester  school  the  parents  of  many  boys  were  artisans, 
or  of  that  rank  ;  some  even  had  sisters  that  were  menial 
servants ;  and  those  who  stood  higher  by  pretensions  of 
Dirtli  and  gentle  blood  were,  at  the  most,  the  sons  of 
rural  gentry  or  of  clergymen.  And  I  believe  that,  with 
the  exception  of  three  or  four  brothers,  belonging  to  a 
elergyman’s  family  at  York,  all  were,  like  myself,  natives 
&f  Lancashire.  At  that  time  my  experience  was  too 
Ernited  to  warrant  me  in  expressing  any  opinion,  one 
way  or  the  other,  upon  the  relative  pretensions — moral 


830 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


jind  intellectual  — of  the  several  provinces  in  our  island 
But  since  then  I  have  seen  reason  to  agree  with  the  late 
Dr.  Cooke  Taylor  in  awarding  the  preeminence,  as  re¬ 
gards  energy,  power  to  face  suffering,  and  ether  high 
qualities,  to  the  natives  of  Lancashire.  Even  a  century 
oack,  they  were  distinguished  for  the  culture  of  refined 
tastes.  In  musical  skill  and  sensibility,  no  part  oi 
Europe,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  places  in  Germany, 
could  pretend  to  rival  them :  and  accordingly,  even  in 
Handers  days,  but  for  the  chorus-singers  from  Lanca¬ 
shire,  his  oratorios  must  have  remained  a  treasure,  if  not 
absolutely  sealed,  at  any  rate  most  imperfectly  revealed. 

One  of  the  young  men,  noticing  my  state  of  dejection, 
brought  out  some  brandy — a  form  of  alcohol  which  I, 
for  my  part,  tasted  now  for  the  first  time,  having  previ¬ 
ously  taken  only  wine,  and  never  once  in  quantities  to 
affect  my  spirits.  So  much  the  greater  was  my  astonish¬ 
ment  at  the  rapid  change  worked  in  my  state  of  feeling 
—  a  change  which  at  once  reinstalled  me  in  my  natural 
advantages  for  conversation.  Towards  this  nothing  was 
wanting  but  a  question  of  sufficient  interest.  And  a 
question  arose  naturally  out  of  a  remark  addressed  by 
one  of  the  boys  to  myself,  implying  that  perhaps  I  hud 
intentionally  timed  my  arrival  so  as  to  escape  the  Sun¬ 
day  evening  exercise  ?  No,  I  replied  ;  not  at  all ;  what 
was  that  exercise  ?  Simply  an  off-hand  translation 
from  the  little  work  of  Grotius  *  on  the  Evidences  ol 
Christianity.  Did  I  know  the  book?  No,  I  did  not: 
8,11  the  direct  knowledge  which  I  had  of  Grotius  was 
built  upon  his  metrical  translations  into  Latin  of  various 
fragments  surviviag  from  the  Greek  scenical  poets,  an<* 
&ese  translations  had  struck  me  as  exceedingly  beauti 
•  Entitled  De  Veritate  Christiana  ReligionU. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OP1UM-EATES. 


331 


W.  On  the  other  hand,  his  work  of  highest  pretension, 
'*  De  Jure  Belli  et  Pa£:c/’  so  signally  praised  by  Lord 
Bacon,  I  had  not  read  k  all ;  but  I  had  heard  such  an 
account  of  it  from  a  very  th rightful  person,  as  made  it 
probable  that  Grotius  was  stronger,  and  felt  himself 
stronger,  on  literary  than  on  philosophic  ground.  Then, 
with  regard  to  his  little  work  on  the  Mosaic  and  Chris¬ 
tian  revelations,  I  had  heard  very  disparaging  opinions 
about  it ;  two  especially.  One  amounted  to  no  more 
than  this  —  that  the  question  was  arguer  with  a  logic 
far  inferior,  in  point  of  cogency,  to  that  of  Lardner  and 
Paley.  Here  several  boys  interposed  their  Ion’  assent, 
as  regarded  Paley  in  particular.  Paley’s  “  Evidences,” 
at  that  time  just  seven  years  old,  had  already  beeor  .3  a 
subject  of  study  amongst  them.  But  the  other  objection 
impeached  not  so  much  the  dialectic  acuteness  as  th$ 
learning  of  Grotius  —  at  least,  the  appropriate  learning 
According  to  the  anecdote  current  ujaon  this  subject, 
Dr.  Edward  Pococke,  the  great  oriental  scholar  of  Eng¬ 
land  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  called  upon  to 
translate  the  little  work  of  Grotius  into  Arabic  or 
Turkish,  had  replied  by  pointing  to  the  idle  legend  of 
Mahomet’s  pigeon  or  dove,  as  a  reciprocal  messenger 
between  the  prophet  and  heaven  —  which  legend  had 
been  accredited  and  adopted  by  Grotius  in  the  blindest 
spirit  of  credulity.  Such  a  baseless  fable,  Pococke 
alleged,  would  work  a  double  mischief :  not  only  it 
would  ruin  the  authority  of  that  particular  book  in  the 
East,  but  would  damage  Christianity  for  generations,  by 
making  known  to  the  followers  of  the  Prophet  that  their 
master  was  undervalued  amongst  the  Franks  od  the 
authority  of  nursery  tales,  and  that  these  tales  were  ao 
iredited  by  the  leading  F rankish  scholars. 


m 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


A  twofold  result  of  evil  would  follow :  not  only  would 
our  Christian  erudition  and  our  Christian  scholars  be 
Bcandalously  disparaged;  a  consequence  that  in  some 
«ases  might  not  be  incompatible  with  a  sense  amongst 
Mahometans  that  the  strength  of  Christianity  itself  was 
unaffected  by  the  errors  and  blunders  of  its  champions ; 
but,  secondly,  there  would  be  in  this  case  a  strong  reac¬ 
tion  against  Christianity  itself.  Plausibly  enough  it 
would  be  inferred  that  a  vast  religious  philosophy  could 
have  no  powerful  battery  of  arguments  in  reserve,  when 
it  placed  its  main  anti-Mahometan  reliance  upon  so 
childish  a  fable :  since,  allowing  even  for  a  blameless 
assent  to  this  fable  amongst  nations  having  no  direct  in¬ 
tercourse  with  Mussulmans,  still  it  would  argue  a  shock¬ 
ing  frailty  in  Christianity,  that  its  main  pleadings  rested, 
not  upon  any  strength  of  its  own,  but  simply  upon  a 
weakness  in  its  antagonist. 

At  this  point,  when  the  cause  of  Grotius  seemed  ut¬ 
terly  desperate,  G -  (a  boy  whom  subsequently  I  had 

reason  to  admire  as  equally  courageous,  truthful,  and 
far-seeing)  suddenly  changed  the  whole  field  of  view. 
He  offer  sd  no  defence  for  the  ridiculous  fable  of  the 
pigeon ;  which  pigeon,  on  the  contrary,  he  represented 
as  drawing  in  harness  with  that  Christian  goose  which 
at  one  time  was  universally  believed  by  Mahometans  to 
lead  the  vanguard  of  the  earliest  Crusaders,  and  which, 
m  a  imited  extent,  really  had  been  a  true  historical  per¬ 
sonage.  So  far  he  gave  up  Grotius  as  indefensible. 
But  on  the  main  question,  and  the  very  extensive  ques¬ 
tion  of  his  apparent  imbecility  when  collated  with  Paley 
etc.,  suddenly  and  in  one  sentence  he  revolutionized  th* 
vhole  logic  of  that  comparison.  Paley  and  Lardner,  lit 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


333 


l&id,  what  was  it  that  they  sought  ?  Their  object  was 
—  avowedly  to  benefit  by  any  argument,  evidence,  or 
presumption  whatsoever,  no  matter  whence  drawn,  so 
long  as  it  was  true  or  probable,  and  fitted  to  sustain  the 
credibility  of  any  element  in  the  Christian  creed.  Well, 
was  not  that  object  common  to  them  and  to  Grotius  ? 

Not  at  all.  Too  often  had  he  (the  boy  G - )  secretly 

noticed  the  abstinence  of  Grotius  (apparently  unaccount¬ 
able)  from  certain  obvious  advantages  of  argument,  not 
to  suspect  that,  in  narrowing  his  own  field  of  disputation, 
he  had  a  deliberate  purpose,  and  was  moving  upon  the 
line  of  some  very  different  policy.  Clear  it  was  to  him , 
that  Grotius,  for  some  reason,  declined  to  receive  evi¬ 
dence  except  from  one  special  and  limited  class  of  wit¬ 
nesses.  Upon  this,  some  of  us  laughed  at  such  a  self¬ 
limitation  as  a  wild  bravado,  recalling  that  rope-dancing 
feat  of  some  verse-writers  who,  through  each  several 
stanza  in  its  turn,  had  gloried  in  dispensing  with  some 
one  separate  consonant,  some  vowel,  or  some  diphthong, 
and  thus  achieving  a  triumph  such  as  crowns  with  laurel 
that  pedestrian  nthlete  who  wins  a  race  by  hopping  on 
one  leg,  or  wins  it  under  the  inhuman  condition  of  con¬ 
fining  both  legs  within  a  sack.  “  No ,  no,”  impatiently 

interrupted  G - .  “  All  such  fantastic  conflicts  with 

self-created  difficulties  terminate  in  pure  ostentation, 
and  profit  nobody.  But  the  self-imposed  limitations  of 
Grotius  had  a  special  purpose,  and  realized  a  value  not 
otherwise  attainable.”  If  Grotius  accepts  no  arguments 
or  presumptions  except  from  Mussulmans,  from  Infidels, 
or  from  those  who  rank  as  Neutrals,  then  has  he  adapted 
his  book  to  a  separate  and  peculiar  audience.  The 
Neutral  man  will  hearken  to  authorities  notoriously 


534 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


Neutral ;  Mussulmans  will  show  deference  to  the  state 
ments  of  Mussulmans  ;  the  Skeptic  will  bow  to  the  rea- 
Bonings  of  Skepticism.  All  these  persons,  that  would 
have  been  repelled  on  the  very  threshold  from  such  tes¬ 
timonies  as  begin  in  a  spirit  of  hostility  to  themselves, 
will  listen  thoughtfully  to  suggestions  offered  in  a  spirit 
of  conciliation  ;  much  more  so  if  offered  by  people  occu¬ 
pying  the  same  ground  at  starting  as  themselves. 

At  the  cost  of  some  disproportion,  I  have  ventured  to 
rehearse  this  inaugural  conversation  amongst  the  leaders 

of  the  school.  Whether  G - were  entirely  correct 

in  this  application  of  a  secret  key  to  the  little  work  of 
Grotius,  I  do  not  know.  I  take  blame  to  myself  thai 
I  do  not;  for  I  also  must  have  been  called  upon  for  my 
quota  to  the  Sunday  evening  studies  on  the  “  De  Veri- 
tate  ;  ”  and  must  therefore  have  held  in  my  hands  the 
ready  means  for  solving  the  question.* 

Meantime,  as  a  solitary  act  of  silent  observation  in  a 

boy  not  fifteen,  this  deciphering  Idea  of  G - ’s,  in 

direct  resistance  to  the  received  idea,  extorted  my  ad¬ 
miration  ;  and  equally,  whether  true  or  false  as  regarded 
the  immediate  fact.  That  any  person,  in  the  very  middle 
storm  of  chase,  when  a  headlong  movement  carries  all 
impulses  into  one  current,  should  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  recall  himself  to  the  unexpected  “  doubles  ”  of 
the  game,  wheel  as  that  wheels,  and  sternly  resist  the  in- 

*  Some  excuse,  however,  for  my  own  want  of  energy  is  suggested 
by  the  fact,  that  very  soon  after  my  matriculation  Mr.  Lawson  sub¬ 
stituted  for  Grotius,  as  the  Sunday  evening  lecture-book,  Dr.  Clark1 
Commentary  cn  the  New  Testament.  “  Out  of  sight,  out  of  mind; 
find  in  that  way  only  can  I  account  for  my  own  neglect  to  clear  nt» 
question.  Or  perhaps,  after  all  I  did  clear  it  up,  and  in  a  long  ut« 
ftarch  subsequently  may  have  dropped  it  by  the  wayside. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


335 


etincts  of  the  one  preoccupying  assumption,  argues  a 

sagacity  not  often  heard  of  in  boyhood.  Was  G - 

right.  ?  In  that  case  he  picked  a  lock  which  others  had 
failed  to  pick.  Was  he  wrong?  In  that  case  he  sketched 
the  idea  and  outline  of  a  better  work  (better,  as  more 
original  and  more  special  in  its  service)  than  any  which 
Grotius  has  himself  accomplished. 

Not,  however,  the  particular  boy,  but  the  particular 
school,  it  was  my  purpose,  in  this  place,  to  signalize  for 
praise  and  gratitude.  In  after  years,  when  an  under- 
graduate  at  Oxford,  I  had  an  opportunity  of  reading 
as  it  were  in  a  mirror  the  characteristic  pretensions 
and  the  average  success  of  many  celebrated  schools. 
Such  a  mirror  I  found  in  the  ordinary  conversation 
and  in  the  favorite  reading  of  young  gownsmen  be¬ 
longing  to  the  many  different  colleges  of  Oxford.  Gene¬ 
rally  speaking,  each  college  had  a  filial  connection 
(strict*  or  not  strict)  with  some  one  or  more  of  our 
great  public  schools.  These,  fortunately  for  England, 
are  diffused  through  all  her  counties  :  and  as  the 
main  appointments  to  the  capital  offices  in  such  public 
schools  are  often  vested  by  law  in  Oxford  or  Cam¬ 
bridge,  this  arrangement  guarantees  a  sound  system 
of  teaching ;  so  that  any  failures  in  the  result  must 
presumably  be  due  to  the  individual  student.  Failures, 
on  the  whole,  I  do  not  suppose  that  there  were.  Classical 
attainments,  that  might  be  styled  even  splendid,  were 
not  then,  nor  are  now,  uncommon.  And  yet  in  one 
great  feature  many  of  those  schools,  even  the  very  best, 

*  “  Strict  or  not  strict :  ”  —  la  some  coil  3ges  the  claims  of  alumnt 
from  certain  schools  were  absomte  ;  in  some,  I  believe,  conditional; 
m  other'3,  again,  concurrent  with  rival  Claims  from  favored  3(hools  cal 
tiivored  counties. 


536 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


when  thus  tried  by  their  fruits,  left  a  painful  mementn 
of  failure  ;  or  raiher  not  of  failure  as  in  relation  to  any 
purpose  that  they  steadily  recognized,  but  of  wilful  and 
intentional  disregard  as  towards  a  purpose  alien  from 
any  duty  of  theirs,  or  any  task  which  they  had  ever 
undertaken -- a  failure,  namely,  in  relation  to  modem 
literature  —  a  neglect  to  unroll  its  mighty  charts  :  and 
amongst  this  modern  literature  a  special  neglect  (such 
as  seems  almost  brutal)  of  our  own  English  literature, 
though  pleading  its  patent  of  precedency  in  a  voice  so 
trumpet-tongued.  To  myself,  whose  homage  ascended 
night  and  day  towards  the  great  altars  of  English  Poetry 
or  Eloquence,  it  was  shocking  and  revolting  to  find  in 
high-minded  young  countrymen,  burning  with  sensibility 
that  sought  vainly  for  a  corresponding  object,  deep  un¬ 
consciousness  of  an  all  sufficient  object  —  namely,  in 
that  great  inheritance  of  our  literature  which  sometimes 
kindled  enthusiasm  in  our  public  enemies.  How  painful 
to  see  or  to  know  that  vast  revelations  of  grandeur  and 
beauty  are  wasting  themselves  forever  —  forests  teem¬ 
ing  with  gorgeous  life,  floral  wildernesses  hidden  inac¬ 
cessibly  ;  whilst,  at  the  same  time,  in  contraposition  to 
that  evil,  behold  a  corresponding  evil ;  —  viz.,  that  with 
equal  prodigality  the  great  capacities  of  enjoyment  are 
running  also  to  waste,  and  are  everywhere  burning  out 
vmexercised  —  waste,  in  short,  in  the  world  of  things 
enji-yable,  balanced  by  an  equal  waste  in  the  organs  and 
the  machineries  of  enjoyment !  This  picture  —  would 
it  not  fret  the  heart  of  an  Englishman?  Some  years 
(s ay  twenty)  after  the  era  of  my  own  entrance  at  that 
Oxford  which  then  furnished  me  with  records  so  painful 
\ti  alight  regard  to  our  national  literature,  behold  at  th« 


CONFESSIONS  01  AN  OPIUM- EATEK. 


33? 


sourt  of  London  &  French  ambassador,  a  man  of  genius 
blazing  (as  some  people  thought)  with  nationality,  but, 
in  fact,  with  something  inexpressibly  nobler  and  deeper 
—  viz.,  patriotism.  For  true  and  unaffected  patriotism 
will  show  its  love  in  a  noble  form  by  sincerity  and  truth. 
But  nationality,  as  I  have  always  found,  is  mean  ;  is 
dishonest;  is  ungenerous  ;  is  incapable  of  candor;  and 
being  continually  besieged  with  temptations  to  false¬ 
hood,  too  often  ends  by  becoming  habitually  menda- 
cious.  This  Frenchman  above  all  things  valued  litera¬ 
ture  :  his  own  trophies  of  distinction  were  all  won  upon 
that  held :  and  yet,  when  called  upon  to  review  the  lit¬ 
erature  of  Europe,  he  found  himself  conscientiously 
coerced  into  making  his  work  a  mere  monument  to  the 
glory  of  one  man,  and  that  man  the  son  of  a  hostile 
land.  The  name  of  Milton,  in  his  estimate,  swallowed 
up  all  others.  This  Frenchman  was  Chateaubriand. 
The  personal  splendor  which  surrounded  him  gave  a 
corresponding  splendor  to  his  act.  And  because  he,  as 
an  ambassador,  was  a  representative  man,  this  act  might 
be  interpreted  as  a  representative  act.  The  tutelary 
genius  of  France  in  this  instance  might  be  regarded  as 
bending  before  that  of  England.  But  homage  so  free, 
homage  so  noble,  must  be  interpreted  and  received  in  a 
corresponding  spirit  of  generosity.  It  was  not,  like  the 
testimony  of  Balaam  on  behalf  of  Israel,  an  unwilling 
submission  to  a  hateful  truth  :  it  was  a  concession,  in 
the  spirit  of  saintly  magnanimity,  to  an  interest  ol 
ouman  nature  that,  as  such,  transcended  by  many  de¬ 
grees  all  considerations  merely  national. 

Now,  then,  with  'his  unlimited  devotion  to  one  great 
pminary  of  our  literary  system  emblazoned  so  conspio 

22 


388 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


aouslj  in  the  testimony  of  a  Frenchman  —  that  is,  a 
one  trained  and  privileged  to  be  a  public  enemy  —  con* 
trast  the  humiliating  spectacle  of  young  Englishmen  suf¬ 
fered  (so  far  as  their  training  is  concerned)  to  ignore  the 
very  existence  of  this  mighty  poet.  Do  I  mean,  then, 
Jiat  it  would  have  been  advisable  to  place  the  “  Para¬ 
dise  Lost,”  and  the  “  Paradise  Regained,”  and  the  ((  Sam¬ 
son,”  in  the  library  of  schoolboys  ?  By  no  means.  That 
mode  of  sensibility  which  deals  with  the  Miltonic  sub¬ 
limity,  is  rarely  developed  in  boyhood.  And  these  di¬ 
vine  works  should  in  prudence  be  reserved  to  the  period 
of  mature  manhood.  But  then  it  should  be  made  known 
that  they  are  so  reserved ;  and  upon  what  principle  of 
reverential  regard  for  the  poet  himself.  In  the  mean¬ 
time,  selections  from  Milton,  from  Dryden,  from  Pope, 
and  many  other  writers,  though  not  everywhere  appre¬ 
ciable  by  those  who  have  but  small  experience  of  life, 
would  not  generally  transcend  the  intellect  or  sensibility 
of  a  boy  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old.  And  beyond 
all  other  sections  of  literature,  the  two  which  I  am  going 
to  mention  are  fitted  (or  might  be  fitted  by  skilful  man¬ 
agement)  to  engage  the  interest  of  those  who  are  no 
.  onger  boys,  but  have  reached  the  age  which  is  presum¬ 
able  in  English  university  matriculation  —  viz.,  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  year.  Search  through  all  languages, 
from  Benares  the  mystical,  and  the  banks  of  the  Ganges, 
travellii  g  westwards  to  the  fountains  of  the  Hudson,  1 
deny  that  any  two  such  bibliothecce  for  engaging  youth¬ 
ful  interest  could  be  brought  together  as  these  two  which 
follow  ^  — - 

First.  In  contradiction  to  M.  Cousin’s  recent  audaciou* 
assertion  (redeemed  from  the  suspicion  of  mendacity 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


339 


limply  by  the  extremity  of  ignorance  on  which  it  re 
poses)  that  we  English  have  no  tolerable  wiiter  of  prose 
subsequent  to  Lord  Bacon,  it  so  happens  that  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century,  and  specially  that  part  of  it  concerned  in 
this  case  —  viz.,  the  latter  seventy  years  (a.  d.  1628- 
1700)  —  produced  the  highest  efforts  of  eloquence  (phil¬ 
osophic,  but  at  the  sanm  time  rhetorical  and  impassioned, 
in  a  degree  unknown  to  hie  prose  literature  of  France) 
which  our  literature  possesses,  and  not  a  line  of  it  but  ia 
posterior  to  the  death  of  Lord  Bacon.  Donne,  Chilling- 
worth,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Milton, 
South,  Barrow,  form  a  pleiad ,  a  constellation  of  seven 
golden  stars,  such  as  no  literature  can  match  in  their 
own  class.  From  these  seven  writers,  taken  apart  from 
all  their  contemporaries,  I  would  undertake  to  build  up 
an  entire  body  of  philosophy*  upon  the  supreme  inter¬ 
ests  of  humanity.  One  error  of  M.  Cousin’s  doubtless 
lay  in  overlooking  the  fact  —  that  all  conceivable  prob¬ 
lems  of  philosophy  can  reproduce  themselves  under  a 
theological  mask  :  and  thus  he  had  absolved  himself  from 
reading  many  English  books,  as  presumably  mere  pro¬ 
fessional  pleadings  of  Protestant  polemics,  which  are  in 
fact  mines  inexhaustible  of  eloquence  and  philosophic 
speculation. 

Secondly.  A  full  abstract  of  the  English  drama  from 
about  the  year  1580  to  the  period  (say  1635)  at  which 

*  “  Philosophy  — At  this  point  it  is  that  the  main  misconception 
w  ould  arise.  Theology,  and  not  philosophy,  most  people  will  fancy, 
I?  likely  to  form  the  staole  of  these  writers.  But  I  have  elsewhere 
maintained,  that  the  main  bulk  of  English  philosophy  has  always  hid¬ 
den  itself  in  the  English  divinity.  In  Jeremy  Taylor,  for  instance, 
•re  exhibited  all  the  practical  aspects  )f  philosophy  ;  of  philosophy 
is  it  bears  upon  Life,  upon  Ethics,  and  upon  Transcendent  ^“udeiu# 
w  *.  e. ,  briefly  upon  the  Greek  summum  oonura 


340 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


it  was  killed  by  the  frost  of  the  Puritanical  spirit  sC% 
sorting  all  flesh  for  the  Parliamentary  War.  No  literal 
ture,  not  excepting  even  that  of  Athens,  has  ever  pre¬ 
sented  such  a  multiform  theatre,  such  a  carnival  display, 
mask  and  antimask,  of  impassioned  life — -breathing, 
moving,  acting,  suffering,  laughing :  — 

'*  Quicquid  agunt  homines — votum,  timor,  ira,  voluptas 
Gaudia,  discursus.”  * 

—  All  this,  but  far  more  truly  and  adequately  than  waa 
or  could  be  effected  in  that  field  of  composition  which 
the  gloomy  satirist  contemplated,  whatsoever  in  fact 
our  mediaeval  ancestors  exhibited  in  their  “  Dance  of 
Death,”  drunk  with  tears  and  laughter,  may  here  be  re* 
viewed,  scenically  grouped,  draped,  and  gorgeously  col- 
lored.  What  other  national  drama  can  pretend  to  any 
competition  with  this  ?  The  Athenian  has  in  a  great 
proportion  perished  ;  the  Roman  was  killed  prematurely 
by  the  bloody  realities  of  the  amphitheatre,  as  candle¬ 
light  by  day-light ;  the  Spanish,  even  in  the  hands  of 
Calderon,  offers  only  undeveloped  sketchings  ;  and  the 
French,  besides  other  and  profounder  objections,  to 
which  no  justice  has  yet  been  done,  lies  under  the  signal 
disadvantage  of  not  having  reached  its  meridian  until 
sixty  years  (or  two  generations)  after  the  English.  In 
reality,  the  great  period  of  the  English  drama  was  ex¬ 
actly  closing  as  the  French  opened  :f  consequently  the 

*  “  All  that  is  done  by  men  —  movements  of  prayer,  panic,  wrath, 
revels  of  the  voluptuous,  festivals  of  triumph,  or  gladiatorship  of  th« 
intellect.”  Juvenal,  in  the  prefatory  lines  which  rehearse  the  prevail¬ 
ing  themes  of  his  own  Satires  gathered  in  the  great  harvests  of  Rome. 

t  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  period  immediately  anterior  to  that  o 
Corneille,  a  stronger  and  more  living  nature  was  struggling  for  utter 
aace  in  Fre  ich  tragedy.  Guizot  has  cited  from  an  early  drama  ( 
forget  wt'.eti  >r  of  Rotron  or  of  Hardy)  one  scene  most  thoroughly  im 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  GCIUM-EATEB. 


341 


French  lost  the  prodigious  advantage  for  scenical  effects 
of  a  romantic  and  picturesque  age.  This  had  vanished 
when  the  French  theatre  culmina+ed ;  and  the  natural 
result  was,  that  the  fastidiousness  of  French  taste,  by 
this  time  too  powerfully  developed,  stifled  or  distorted 
the  free  movements  of  French  genius. 

I  beg  the  reader’s  pardon  for  this  disproportioned  di¬ 
gression,  into  which  I  was  hurried  by  my  love  for  our 
great  national  literature,  my  anxiety  to  see  it  amongst 
educational  resources  invested  with  a  ministerial  agency 
of  far  ampler  character,  but  at  all  events  to  lodge  a  pro¬ 
test  against  that  wholesale  neglect  of  our  supreme  authors 
which  leaves  us  open  to  the  stinging  reproach  of  “  tread¬ 
ing  daily  with  our  clouted  shoon  ”  (to  borrow  the  words 
of  Comus)  upon  that  which  high-minded  foreigners  re¬ 
gard  as  the  one  paramount  jewel  in  our  national  dia* 
dem. 

That  reproach  fell  heavily,  as  my  own  limited  experi¬ 
ence  inclined  me  to  fear,  upon  most  of  our  great  public 

passioned.  The  situation  is  that  of  a  prince,  who  has  fixed  his  love 
npon  a  girl  of  low  birth.  She  is  faithful  and  constant :  but  the  courtiers 
about  the  prince,  for  malicious  purposes  of  their  own,  calumniate  her: 
the  prince  is  deluded  by  the  plausible  air  of  the  slanders  which  they 
ili:per3e  :  he  believes  them  ;  but  not  with  the  result  (anticipated  1  y 
the  courtiers)  of  dismissing  the  girl  from  his  thoughts.  On  the  con¬ 
trary,  he  is  haunted  all  the  more  morbidly  by  her  image  ;  and  in  a  scene 
which  brings  before  us  one  of  the  vilest  amongst  these  slanderers  ex¬ 
erting  himself  to  the  uttermost  in  drawing  off  the  prince’s  thoughts  to 
alien  objects,  we  find  the  prince  vainly  attempting  any  self-control, 
vainly  striving  to  attend,  still  he  is  overruled  by  the  tenderness  cf  his 
itorrowing  love  intc  finding  new  occasions  for  awakening  thoughts  ot 
khe  lost  girl  in  the  very  words  chiefly  reded  on  for  calling  off  bis  feel- 
ngs  from  her  image.  The  scene  (as  Guizot  himself  remarks;  is  thor¬ 
oughly  Shaksperian  and  I  venture  a)  think  that  this  judgment  would 
we  been  countersigned  by  Charle3  Larch. 


342 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


schools,  otherwise  so  admirably  conducted.*  But  front 
the  Manchester  Grammar  School  any  such  reproach 
altogether  rebounded.  My  very  first  conversation  with 
the  boys  had  arisen  naturally  upon  a  casual  topic,  and 
had  shown  them  to  be  tolerably  familiar  with  the  outline 
of  the  Christian  polemics  in  the  warfare  with  Jew,  Ma¬ 
hometan,  Infidel,  and  Skeptic.  But  this  was  an  excep¬ 
tional  case ;  and  naturally  it  happened  that  most  of  us 
sought  for  the  ordinary  subjects  of  our  conversational 
discussions  in  literature  —  viz.,  in  our  own  native  litera¬ 
ture.  Here  it  was  that  I  learned  to  feel  a  deep  respect 
for  my  new  school- fellows :  deep  it  was,  then  ;  and  a 
larger  experience  has  made  it  deeper.  I  have  since 
known  many  literary  men,  men  whose  profession  was 
literature  ;  who  were  understood  to  nave  dedicated  them¬ 
selves  to  literature;  and  who  sometimes  had  with  some 
one  special  section  or  little  nook  of  literature  an  ac¬ 
quaintance  critically  minute.  But  amongst  such  men  I 
have  found  but  three  or  four  who  had  a  knowledge  which 
came  as  near  to  what  I  should  consider  a  comprehensive 
knowledge,  as  really  existed  amongst  these  boys  collec¬ 
tively.  What  one  boy  had  not,  another  had  ;  and  thus, 
by  continual  intercourse,  the  fragmentary  contribution  of 
one  being  integrated  by  the  fragmentary  contributions  of 
jthers,  gradually  the  attainments  of  each  separate  in- 
i  ividual  became,  in  some  degree,  the  collective  attain¬ 
ments  of  the  whole  senior  common  room.  It  is  true, 
undoubtedly,  that  some  parts  of  literature  were  inacres- 

*  It  will  strike  everybody  that  such  works  as  the  “  Microcosm, 
l&nducted  notoriously  by  Eton  boys,  and  therefore,  in  part,  by  Can 
siag,  as  one  of  their  leaders  at  that  period,  must  have  an  admirable 
■jlfoct,  since,  n>t  only  it  must  nave  made  it  the  interest  of  each  ccntritv 
cior,  but  must  even  have  made  it  his  necessity,  to  cultivate  some  6# 
pajua'.anco  with  his  native  literature, 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AS  OPIUM-EATER. 


34? 


lible,  simply  because  the  books  were  inaccessible  to  bovs 
Rt  school;  for  instance,  Froissart  in  the  old  translation 
by  Lord  Berners,  now  more  than  three  centuries  old  ; 
and  some  parts  were,  to  the  young,  essentially  repulsive. 
But,  measuring  the  general  qualifications  by  that  standard 
which  I  have  since  found  to  prevail  amongst  professional 
litterateurs ,  I  felt  more  respectfully  towards  the  majority 
of  my  senior  school-fellows  than  ever  I  had  fancied  it 
possible  that  I  should  find  occasion  to  feel  towards  any 
boys  whatever.  My  intercouse  with  those  amongst  them 
who  had  any  conversational  talents,  greatly  stimulated 
my  intellect. 

This  intercourse,  however,  fell  within  narrower  limits 
soon  after  the  time  of  my  entrance.  I  acknowledge,  with 
deep  self-reproach,  that  every  possible  indulgence  was 
allowed  to  me  which  the  circumstances  of  the  establish¬ 
ment  made  possible.  I  had,  for  example,  a  private  room 
allowed,  in  which  I  not  only  studied,  but  also  slept  at 
night.  The  room  being  airy  and  cheerful,  I  found  noth¬ 
ing  disagreeable  in  this  double  use  of  it.  Naturally, 
however,  this  means  of  retirement  tended  to  sequester  mo 
from  my  companions  ;  for,  whilst  liking  the  society  of 
some  amongst  them,  I  also  had  a  deadly  liking  (perhaps 
i  morbid  liking)  for  solitude.  To  make  my  present 
solitude  the  more  fascinating,  my  mother  sent  me  five 
guineas  extra,  for  the  purchase  of  an  admission  to  the 
Manchester  Library  ;  a  library  which  I  should  not  at 
present  think  very  extensive,  but  which,  however,  bene¬ 
fited  in  its  composition,  as  also  in  its  administration,  by 
the  good  sense  and  intelligence  of  some  amongst  ita 
9  Driginal  committees.  These  two  luxuries  were  truly 
wd  indeed  such;  but  a  third,  from  which  I  had  antici* 


344 


JtDDxfIONS  TO  THE 


patod  even  greatex  pleasure,  turned  out  a  total  failure 
and  for  a  reason  which  it  may  be  useful  to  mention,  bj 
way  of  caution  to  ethers.  This  was  a  pianoforte,  to¬ 
gether  with  the  sum  required  for  regular  lessons  from  a 
music-master.  But.  the  first  disco  »ery  I  made  was,  that 
practice  through  eight  or  even  ten  hours  a  day  was  in¬ 
dispensable  towards  any  great  proficiency  on  this  instru. 
ment.  Another  discovery  finished  my  disenchantment ; 
it  was  this.  For  the  particular  purpose  which  I  had  in 
view,  it  became  clear  tlia'  so  mastery  of  the  instrument, 
not  even  that  of  Thalberg,  would  be  available.  Too 
soon  I  became  aware  that  to  the  deep  voluptuous  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  music  absolute  passivene^s  in  the  hearer  is 
indispensable.  Gam  what  skil/  you  please,  nevertheless 
activity,  vigilance,  anxiety  must  always  accompany  an 
elaborate  effort  of  musical  execution  ;  and  so  far  is  that 
from  being  reconcilable  with  the  entrancement  and  lull 
essential  to  the  true  fruition  of  music,  that  even  if  you 
should  suppose  a  vast  piece  of  mechanism  capable  of 
executing  a  whole  oratorio,  but  requiring,  at  intervals,  a 
cooperating  impulse  from  tne  foot  of  the  auditor,  even 
that,  even  so  much  as  an  occasional  touch  of  the  foot, 
would  utterly  undermine  all  your  pleasure.  A  single 
psychological  discovery,  therefore,  caused  my  musical 
anticipations  to  evanesce.  Consequently,  one  of  my 
luxuries  burst  like  a  bubble  at  an  early  stage.  In  this 
state  of  things,  when  the  instrument  had  turned  out  a 
bubble,  it  followed  naturally  that  the  music-maater 
should  fin  I  himself  to  be  a  bubble.  But  he  was  s-j 
thoroughly  good-natured  and  agreeable,  that  I  could  nof 
reconcile  myself  to  such  a  catastrophe.  Meantime  • 
though  accommodating  within  certain  limits,  this  musio 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


343 


master  was  yet  a  conscientious  man,  and  a  man  of  lion 
arable  pride.  On  finding,  therefore,  that  I  was  not 
seriously  making  any  effort  to  improve,  he  shook  hands 
with  me  one  fine  day,  and  took  his  leave  forever.  Un« 
less  it  were  to  point  a  moral  and  adorn  a  tale,  the  piano 
had  then  become  useless.  It  was  too  big  to  hang  upon 
willows,  and  willows  there  were  none  in  that  neighbor¬ 
hood.  But  it  remained  for  months  as  a  lumbering  men* 
ument  of  labor  misapplied,  of  bubbles  that  had  burst 
and  of  musical  visions  that,  under  psychological  tests,  had 
foundered  forever. 

Yes,  certainly,  this  particular  luxury  —  one  out  of 
three —  had  proved  a  bubble  ;  too  surely  this  had  foun¬ 
dered  ;  but  not,  therefore,  the  other  two.  The  quiet 
study,  lifted  by  two  stories  above  the  vapors  of  earth, 
and  liable  to  no  unseasonable  intrusion  ;  the  Manchester 
Library,  so  judiciously  and  symmetrically  mounted  in  j?.ll 
its  most  attractive  departments  —  no  class  dispropor- 
tioned  to  the  rest — these  were  no  bubbles,  these  had  not 
foundered.  Oh,  wherefore,  then  was  it  —  through  what 
inexplicable  growth  of  evil  in  myself  or  in  others  — 
that  now  in  the  summer  of  1802,  when  peace  was  brood¬ 
ing  over  all  the  land,  peace  succeeding  to  a  bloody  seven 
years’  war,  but  peace  which  already  gave  signs  of  break¬ 
ing  into  a  far  bloodier  war,  some  dark  sympathizing 
movement  within  my  own  heart,  as  if  echoing  and  re¬ 
peating  in  mimicry  the  political  menaces  of  the  earUi, 
iwept  with  storm-clouds  across  that  otherwise  serene  and 
radiant  dawn  which  should  have  heralded  my  approach- 
ug  entrance  into  life.  Inexplicable  I  have  allowed  my- 
i-alf  to  call  this  fatal  error  in  my  life,  because  such  it 
appear  to  others ;  since,  even  *o  myself,  so  often  m 


346 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


I  fall  to  realize  the  case  by  reproducing  a  mflex  irnpres 
won  in  kind,  and  in  degree,  of  the  suffering  before  which 
my  better  angel  gave  way  —  yes,  even  to  myself  this 
collapse  of  my  resisting  energies  seems  inexplicable. 
Yet  again,  in  simple  truth,  now  that  it  becomes  possible, 
through  changes  worked  by  time,  to  tell  the  whole  truth 
(and  not,  as  in  former  editions,  only  a  part  of  it),  there 
really  was  no  absolute  mystery  at  all.  But  this  case,  in 
common  with  many  others,  exemplifies  to  my  mind  the 
mere  impossibility  of  making  full  and  frank  “  Confes¬ 
sions,”  whilst  many  of  the  persons  concerned  in  the  in¬ 
cidents  are  themselves  surviving,  or  (which  is  worse 
still),  if  themselves  dead  and  buried,  are  yet  vicariously 
surviving  in  the  persons  of  near  and  loving  kinsmen. 
Rather  than  inflict  mortifications  upon  people  so  circum¬ 
stanced,  any  kindhearted  man  will  choose  to  mutilate  his 
narrative  ;  will  suppress  facts,  and  will  mystify  explana¬ 
tions.  For  instance,  at  this  point  in  my  record,  it  has 
become  my  right,  perhaps  I  might  say  my  duty,  to  call 
a  particular  medical  man  of  the  penultimate  generation  a 
blockhead ;  nay,  doubtfully,  to  call  him  a  criminal  block¬ 
head.  But,  could  I  do  this  without  deep  compunction, 
so  long  as  sons  and  daughters  of  his  were  still  living, 
from  whom  I,  when  a  boy,  had  received  most  hospitable 
attentions  ?  Often,  on  the  very  same  day  which  brought 
home  to  my  suffering  convictions  the  atrocious  ignorance 
of  papa,  I  was  benefiting  by  the  courtesies  of  the  daugh¬ 
ters,  and  by  the  scientific  accomplishments  of  the  son. 
Not  the  less  this  man,  at  that  particular  moment  when  a 
erisis  of  gloom  was  gathering  over  my  path,  became  ef¬ 
fectual!  y  my  evil  genius.  Not  that  singly  perhaps  ht 
soiild  have  worked  any  durable  amount  of  mischief ;  bo 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


347 


he,  S3  a  cooperatop  unconsciously  with  others,  sealed  and 
ratified  that  sentence  of  stormy  sorrow  then  hanging 
s>ver  my  head.  Three  separate  persons,  in  fact,  mada 
themselves  unintentional  accomplices  in  that  ruin  (a  ruin 
reaching  me  even  at  this  day  by  its  shadows),  which 
threw  me  out  a  homeless  vagrant  upon  the  earth  before 
[  had  accomplished  my  seventeenth  year.  Of  these 
three  persons,  foremost  came  myself,  through  my  wilful 
despair  and  resolute  abjuration  of  all  secondary  hope; 
since,  after  all,  some  mitigation  was  possible,  supposing 
that  perfect  relief  might  not  be  possible.  Secondly, 
came  that  medical  ruffian,  through  whose  brutal  igno¬ 
rance  it  happened  that  my  malady  had  not  been  arrested 
before  reaching  an  advanced  stage.  Thirdly,  came  Mr 
Lawson,  through  whose  growing  infirmities  it  had  arisen 
that  this  malady  ever  reached  its  very  earliest  stage. 
Strange  it  was,  but  not  the  less  a  fact,  that  Mr.  Lawson 
was  gradually  becoming  a  curse  to  all  who  fell  under  his 
influence,  through  pure,  zealotry  of  conscientiousness. 
Being  a  wrorse  man,  he  would  have  carried  far  deeper 
nlessings  into  his-  circle.  If  he  could  have  reconciled 
himself  to  an  imperfect  discharge  of  his  duties,  he  would 
Dot  have  betrayed  his  insufficiency  for  those  duties.  But 
this  he  would  not  hear  of.  He  persisted  in  travelling 
over  the  appointed  course  to  the  last  inch  \  and  the  con¬ 
sequences  told  most  painfully  upon  the  comfort  of  all 
around  him.  By  the  old  traditionary  usages  of  the 
school,  going  in  at  7  a.  m.,  we  ought  to  have  been  dis¬ 
missed  for  breakfast  and  a  full  hour’s  repose  at  nino. 
This  hour  of  rest  was  in  strict  justice  a  debt  to  the  stn 
tents  —  liable  to  no  discount  either  through  the  caprice 
i:  the  tardiness  of  the  supreme  master.  Yet  such  were 


348 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


the  gradual  encroachments  upon  this  hour,  that  at  length 
the  beds  of  the  collegiate  church  which,  by  an  ancient 
usage,  rang  every  morning  from  half-past  nine  to  ten, 
and  through  varying  modifications  of  musical  key  and 
rhythmus  that  marked  the  advancing  stages  of  the  half 
hour,  regularly  announced  to  us,  on  issuing  from  the 
gchool-room,  that  the  bread  and  milk  which  composed 
our  simple  breakfast  must  be  dispatched  at  a  pace  fitter 
for  the  fowls  of  the  air  than  students  of  Grecian  philos¬ 
ophy.  But  was  no  compensatory  encroachment  for  our 
benefit  allowed  upon  the  next  hour  from  ten  to  eleven  ? 
Not  for  so  much  as  the  fraction  of  a  second.  Inexorably 
as  the  bells,  by  stopping,  announced  the  hour  of  ten, 
was  Mr.  Lawson  to  be  seen  ascending  the  steps  of  the 
school ;  and  he  that  suffered  most  by  this  rigorous  ex¬ 
action  of  duties,  could  not  allege  that  Mr.  Lawson  suf¬ 
fered  less.  If  he  required  others  to  pay,  he  also  paid  up 
to  the  last  farthing.  The  same  derangement  took  place, 
with  the  same  refusal  to  benefit  by  any  indemnification, 
at  what  should  have  been  the  two-hours’  pause  for  dinner. 
Only  for  some  mysterious  reason,  resting  possibly  upon 
the  family  arrangements  of  the  day-scholars,  which,  if 
once  violated,  might  have  provoked  a  rebellion  of  fathers 
and  mothers,  he  still  adhered  faithfully  to  five  o’clock 
p.  m.  as  the  closing  hour  of  the  day’s  labors. 

Here  then  stood  arrayed  the  whole  machinery  of  mis¬ 
chief  in  good  working  order ;  and  through  six  months  or 
more,  allowing  for  one  short  respite  of  four  weeks,  this 
machinery  had  been  operating  with  effect.  Mr.  Lawacu 
fcc  begin,  had  (without  meaning  it,  or  so  much  a3  perceiv¬ 
ing  it)  barred  up  all  avenues  from  morning  to  nigh* 
trough  which  any  bodily  exercise  could  be  obtained 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


348 


Two  or  three  chance  intervals  of  five  minutes  each,  and 
Even  these  not  consecutively  arranged,  composed  the 
whole  available  fund  of  leisure  out  of  which  any  stroll 
into  the  country  could  have  been  attempted.  But  in  a 
great  city  like  Manchester  the  very  suburbs  had  hardly 
been  reached  before  that  little  fraction  of  time  was  ex¬ 
hausted.  Very  soon  after  Mr.  Lawson’s  increasing  in¬ 
firmities  had  begun  to  tell  severely  in  the  contraction  of 
our  spare  time,  the  change  showed  itself  powerfully  in  mj 
drooping  health.  Gradually  the  liver  became  affected  ; 
and  connected  with  that  affection  arose,  what  often  ac¬ 
companies  such  ailments,  profound  melancholy.  In  such 
circumstances,  indeed  under  any  the  slightest  disturbance 
of  my  health,  I  had  authority  from  my  guardians  to  call 
for  medical  advice :  but  I  was  not  left  to  my  own  discre¬ 
tion  in  selecting  the  adviser.  This  person  was  not  a 
physician,  who  would  of  Qourse  have  expected  the  ordi¬ 
nary  fee  of  a  guinea  for  every  visit ;  nor  a  surgeon ;  but 
simply  an  apothecary.  In  any  case  of  serious  illness,  a 
physican  would  have  been  called  in.  But  a  less  costly 
style  of  advice  was  reas^^ably  held  to  be  sufficient  in 
any  illness  which  left  the  patient  strength  sufficient  to 
walk  about.  Certainly  it  ought  to  have  been  sufficient 
here :  for  no  case  could  possibly  be  simpler.  Three  dosea 
of  calomel  or  blue  pill,  which  unhappily  I  did  not  then 
know,  would  no  doubt  have  reestablished  me  in  a  week. 
But  far  better,  as  acting  always  upon  me  with  a  magical 
celerity  and  a  magical  certainty,  would  have  been  the 
Authoritative  prescription  (privately  notified  to  Mr.  Law¬ 
son)  of  seventy  miles’  walking  in  each  week.  Unhap¬ 
pily  my  professional  adviser  was  a  comatose  cld  gentle¬ 
man,  rich  beyond  all  his  needs,  careless  of  his  own  prao- 


350 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


t’ce.  and  standing  under  that  painful  necessity  (according 
to  the  custom  then  regulating  medical  practice,  which  pro-* 
hibited  fees  to  apothecaries)  of  seeking  his  remuneration 
in  excessive  deluges  of  medecine.  Me,  however,  out  of 
pure  idleness,  he  forbore  to  plague  with  any  variety  gJ 
medicines.  With  sublime  simplicity  he  confined  himself 
to  one  horrid  mixture,  that  must  have  suggested  itself 
to  him  when  prescribing  for  a  tiger.  In  ordinary  circum¬ 
stances,  and  with  plenty  of  exercise,  no  creature  could 
be  healthier  than  myself.  But  my  organization  was 
perilously  frail.  And  to  fight  simultaneously  with  such 
a  malady  and  such  a  medicine,  seemed  really  too  much. 
The  proverb  tells  us  that  three  “  flittings  ”  are  as  bad 
as  a  fire.  Very  possibly.  And  I  should  think  that,  in 
the  same  spirit  of  reasonable  equation,  three  such  tiger- 
drenches  must  be  equal  to  one  apoplectic  fit,  or  even  to  the 
tiger  himself.  Having  taken  two  of  them,  which  struck 
me  as  quite  enough  for  one  life,  I  declined  to  comply 
with  the  injunction  of  the  label  pasted  upon  each  several 
phial  —  viz.,  Repetatur  liaustus  ;*  and  instead  of  doing 

any  such  dangerous  thing,  called  upon  Mr. -  (the 

apothecary),  begging  to  know  if  his  art  had  not  amongst 
its  reputed  infinity  of  resources  any  less  abominable, 
and  less  shattering  to  a  delicate  system  than  this.  “  None 
whatever,”  he  replied.  Exceedingly  kind  he  was  :  in¬ 
sisted  on  my  drinking  tea  with  his  really  aimiable  daugh¬ 
ters  ;  but  continued  at  intervals  to  repeat  “  None  what¬ 
ever- —  none  whatever  ;  ”  then  as  if  rousing  himself  to  an 
effort,  he  gang  out  loudly,  “  None  whatever,”  which  Li 
this  final  utterance  he  toned  down  syllabically  into 


*  u  Lot  the  draught  be  repeated.5’ 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


351 


*  whatever — ever—ver — er.”  The  whole  wit  of  man,  it 
geems,  had  exhausted  itself  upon  the  preparation  of  that 
one  infernal  mixture. 

Now  then  we  three  —  Mr.  Lawson,  the  somnolent 
apothecary,  and  myself  —  had  amongst  us  accomplished 
a  climax  of  perplexity.  Mr.  Lawson,  by  mere  dint  ot 
conscientiousness,  had  made  health  for  me  impossible. 
The  apothecary  had  subscribed  his  little  contribution, 
by  ratifying  and  trebling  the  ruinous  effect  of  his  seden- 
"ariness.  And  for  myself,  as  last  in  the  series,  it  now 
’emained  to  clench  the  operation  by  my  own  little  con¬ 
tribution,  all  that  I  really  had  to  offer  —  viz.,  absolute 
despair.  Those  who  have  ever  suffered  from  a  profound 
derangement  of  the  liver,  may  happen  to  know  that  of 
human  despondencies  through  all  their  infinite  gamut 
uone  is  more  deadly.  Hope  died  within  me.  I  could 
not  look  for  medical  relief,  so  deep  being  my  own  igno¬ 
rance,  so  equally  deep  being  that  of  my  official  counsellor. 
I  could  not  expect  that  Mr.  Lawson  would  modify  his 
system  —  his  instincts  of  duty  being  so  strong,  his  inca¬ 
pacity  to  face  that  duty  so  steadily  increasing.  “  It  comes 
then  to  this,”  thought  I,  “  that  in  myself  only  there  lurks 
%n  arrear  of  help  :  ”  as  always  for  every  man  the  ultimate 
reliance  should  be  on  himself.  But  this  self  of  mine 
seemed  absolutely  bankrupt ;  bankrupt  of  counsel  or  de¬ 
vice  —  of  effort  in  the  way  of  action,  or  of  suggestion  in 
the  way  of  plan.  I  had  for  two  months  been  pursuing 
with  one  of  my  guardians,  what  I  meant  for  a  negotiation 
upon  this  subject ;  the  main  object  being  to  obtain  some 
eonsiderable  abbreviation  of  my  school  residence.  But 
negotiation  was  a  self-flattering  name  for  such  a  corre¬ 
spondence,  since  there  never  had  been  from  the  begm 


55$  ADDITIONS  TO  THE 

ding  any  the  slightest  leaning  on  my  guardian’s  part  to* 
wards  the  shadow  or  pretence  of  a  compromise.  What 
compromise,  indeed,  was  possible  where  neither  party 
could  concede  a  part ,  however  small :  the  whole  must  bo 
conceded,  or  nothing  :  since  no  mezzo  termine  was  conceiv¬ 
able.  In  reality,  when  my  eyes  first  glanced  upon  that 
disagreeable  truth  —  that  no  opening  offered  for  recipro¬ 
cal  concession,  that  the  concession  must  all  be  on  one 
side  —  naturally  it  struck  me  that  no  guardian  could  be 
expected  to  do  that.  At  the  same  moment  it  also  struck 
me,  that  my  guardian  had  all  along  never  for  a  moment 
been  arguing  with  a  view  to  any  practical  result,  but 
simply  in  the  hope  that  he  might  win  over  my  assent  to 
the  reasonableness  of  what,  reasonable  or  not,  was  settled 
immovably.  These  sudden  discoveries,  flashing  upon  me 
simultaneously,  were  quite  sufficient  to  put  a  summary 
close  to  the  correspondence.  And  I  saw  also,  which 
Etrangely  had  escaped  me  till  this  general  revelation  of 
disappointments,  that  any  individual  guardian  —  even  if 
he  had  been  disposed  to  concession  —  was  but  one  after 
all  amongst  five.  Well ;  this  amongst  the  general  black¬ 
ness  really  brought  a  gleam  of  comfort.  If  the  whole 
object  on  which  I  had  spent  so  much  excellent  paper 
and  midnight  tallow  (I  am  ashamed  to  use  so  vile  a 
word,  and  yet  truth  forbids  me  to  say  oil),  if  this  would 
have  been  so  nearly  worthless  when  gained,  then  it  be- 
came  a  kind  of  pleasure  to  have  lost  it.  All  considera¬ 
tions  united  now  in  urging  me  to  waste  no  more  of  either 
rhetoric,  tallow,  or  logic,  upon  my  impassive  granite 
block  of  a  guardian.  Indeed,  I  suspected,  on  reviewing 
nis  last  communication,  that  he  had  just  reached  the  last 
tfich  of  his  patience ,  or  (in  nautical  diction)  had  “  paid 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-E  A.TER. 


353 


cut”  the  entire  cable  by  which  he  swung;  so  that  if  X 
acting  on  the  apothecary’s  precedent  of  “  repetatar  hau - 
itus,”  had  endeavored  to  administer  another  bolus  cr 
draught  of  expostulation,  he  would  have  followed  my 
course  as  to  the  tiger-drench,  in  applying  his  potential 
No  to  any  such  audacious  attempt.  To  my  guardian, 
meantime,  I  owe  this  justice  —  that,  over  and  above  the 
absence  on  my  side  of  any  arguments  wearing  even  a 
colorable  strength  (for  to  him  the  suffering  from  bil¬ 
iousness  must  have  been  a  mere  word)  he  had  the 
following  weighty  consideration  to  offer,  “which  even  this 
foolish  boy  ”  (to  himself  he  would  say)  “  will  think  ma¬ 
terial  some  three  years  ahead.”  lVIy  patrimonial  income, 
at  the  moment  of  my  father’s  death,  like  that  of  all  my 
brothers  (then  three),  was  exactly  £150  per  annum.* 
Now  according  to  the  current  belief,  or  boldly  one  might 
say,  according  to  the  avowed  traditional  maxim  through¬ 
out  England,  such  an  income  was  too  little  for  an  under¬ 
graduate,  keeping  his  four  terms  annually  at  Oxford  or 
Cambridge.  Too  little  — by  how  much  ?  By  £50  :  the 
adequate  income  being  set  down  at  just  £200.  Conse¬ 
quently  the  precise  sum  by  which  my  income  was  sup  < 
posed  (falsely  supposed,  as  subsequently  my  own  experi¬ 
ence  convinced  me)  to  fall  short  of  the  income  needed 
for  Oxford,  was  that  very  sum  which  the  funds  of  the 
Manchester  Grammar  School  allocated  to  every  student 


*  £150  per  annum :  ”  —  Why  in  a  long  minor  ty  of  more  than  four  ■ 
t?en  years  this  was  not  improved,  I  never  could  learn.  Nobody  waa 
•pen  t(  any  suspicion  of  positive  embezzlement/  and  yet  this  case  must 
ae  added  to  the  other  cases  of  passive  neglects  and  negative  injuries 
vhich  so  extensively  disfigure  the  representative  picture  of  guardian 
inip  all  over  Christendom. 

S3 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


£54 

resident  for  a  period  of  three  years  ;  and  allocated  not 
merely  Ihrough  a  corresponding  period  of  three  years, 
hut  of  seven  years.  Strong  should  have  been  the  rea¬ 
sons  that  could  neutralize  such  overwhelming  pleadings 
pf  just  and  honorable  prudence  for  submitting  to  tbs 
further  residence  required.  O  reader,  urge  not  the  cry¬ 
ing  arguments  that  spoke  so  tumultously  against  me.  Too 
Borrowfully  1  feel  them.  Out  of  thirty-six  months’  rc2~ 
idence  required,  I  had  actually  completed  nineteen—* 
t.  e.,  the  better  half.  Still,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  true 
that  my  sufferings  were  almost  insupportable  ;  and,  but 
for  the  blind  unconscious  conspiracy  of  two  persons,  these 
sufferings  would  either  (1)  never  have  existed ;  or  (2) 
would  have  been  instantly  relieved.  In  a  great  city  like 
Manchester  lay,  probably,  a  ship-load  of  that  same  mer¬ 
cury  which,  by  one  fragment,  not  so  large  as  an  acorn, 
woffld  have  changed  the  color  of  a  human  life,  or  would 
have  intercepted  the  heavy  funeral  knell  —  heavy,  though 
it  may  be  partially  muffled  —  of  his  own  fierce  self-re¬ 
proaches. 

ELOPEMENT  FROM  MANCHESTER.44 

But  now,  at  last,  came  over  me,  from  the  mere  excess 
tf  bodily  suffering  and  mental  disappointments,  a  frantic 
and  rapturous  re-agency.  In  the  United  States  the  case 
is  well  known,  and  many  times  has  been  described  by 
travellers,  of  that  furious  instinct  which,  under  a  secret 
call  for  saline  variations  of  diet,  drives  all  the  tribes  oi 
buffaloes  for  thousands  of  miles  to  the  common  centre  oi 
die  “  Salt-licks.”  Under  such  a  compulsion  does  the 
focust,  under  such  a  compulsion  does  the  leeming,  tr&v 
tree  its  mysterious  path.  They  are  deaf  to  dango? 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EA1ER. 


355 


leaf  to  the  cry  of  battle,  deaf  to  the  trumpets  of  death, 
Let  the  sea  cross  their  path,  let  armies  with  artillery 
bar  the  road,  even  these  terrific  powers  can  arrest  only 
by  destroying ;  and  the  most  frightful  abysses,  up  to  the 
very  last  menace  of  engulfment,  up  to  the  very  instant 
of  absorption,  have  no  power  to  alter  or  retard  the  line 
of  their  inexorable  advance. 

Such  an  instinct  it  was,  such  a  rapturous  command  — - 
even  so  potent,  and  alas !  even  so  blind  —  that,  under 
the  whirl  -of  tumultuous  indignation  and  of  new-born 
hope,  suddenly  transfigured  my  whole  being.  In  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye,  I  came  to  an  adamantine  resolution 

—  not  as  if  issuing  from  any  act  or  any  choice  of  my 
own,  but  as  if  passively  received  from  some  dark  oracu¬ 
lar^  legislation  external  to  myself.  That  I  would  elope 
from  Manchester — this  was  the  resolution.  Abscond 
would  have  been  the  word,  if  I  had  meditated  anything 
criminal.  But  whence  came  the  indignation,  and  the 
hope  ?  The  indignation  arose  naturally  against  my  three 
tormentors  (guardian,  Archidi  iascalus,  and  the  professor 
of  tigrology)  ;  for  those  who  do  substantially  cooperate 
Vo  one  result,  however  little  designing  it,  unavoidably 
the  mind  unifies  as  a  hostile  confederacy.  But  the  hope 

—  how  shall  I  explain  that  ?  Was  it  the  first-born  of 
the  resolution,  or  was  the  resolution  the  first-born  of 
the  hope  ?  Indivisibly  they  went  together,  like  thunder 
and  lightning ;  oi  each  interchangeaoly  ran  before  and 
after  the  other.  Under  that  transcendent  rapture  which 
the  prospect  of  sudden  liberation  let  loose,  all  that  natu¬ 
ral  anxiety  which  should  otherwise  have  interlinked 
'tself  wkh  my  anticipations  was  actually  Irowned  in  the 
$la2f  of  joy,  as  the  light  of  the  planet  Mercury  is  !osl 


556 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


and  confounded  on  sinking  too  far  within  the  blare  of 
the  solar  beams.  Practically  I  felt  no  care  at  all  stretch 
ing  bevond  two  or  three  weeks.  Not  as  being  heedless 
and  improvident ;  my  tendencies  lay  generally  in  the 
other  direction.  No;  the  cause  lurked  in  what  Words¬ 
worth,  when  describing  the  festal  state  of  France  during 
the  happy  morning-tide  of  her  First  Revolution  (1788- 
1790),  calls  “  the  senselessness  of  joy :  ”  this  it  was,  joy 
—  headlong  —  frantic  —  irreflective  —  and  (as  Words¬ 
worth  truly  calls  it),  for  that  very  reason,  sublime  * — ■ 
which  swallowed  up  all  capacities  of  rankling  care  or 
heart-corroding  doubt.  I  was,  I  had  been  long  a  cap¬ 
tive  :  I  was  in  a  house  of  bondage  :  one  fulminating 
word  —  Let  there  be  freedom  —  spoken  from  some  hid¬ 
den  recess  in  my  own  will,  had  as  by  an  earthquake  rent 
asunder  my  prison  gates.  At  any  minute  I  could  walk 
out.  Already  I  trod  by  anticipation  the  sweet  pastoral 
hills,  already  I  breathed  gales  of  the  everlasting  moun¬ 
tains,  that  to  my  feelings  blew  from  the  garden  of  Para¬ 
dise  ;  and  in  that  vestibule  of  an  earthly  heaven,  it  waa 
no  more  possible  for  me  to  see  vividly  or  in  any  linger¬ 
ing  detail  the  thorny  cares  which  might  hereafter  multi¬ 
ply  around  me,  than  amongst  the  roses  of  June,  and  on 
the  loveliest  of  June  mornings,  I  could  gather  depression 
from  the  glooms  of  the  last  December.  To  go  was  set¬ 
tled.  But  when  and  whither  ?  When  could  have  but  one 
answer,  for  on  more  reasons  than  one  I  needed  summer 
weather  :  and  as  much  of  it  as  possible.  Besides  that, 
when  August  came,  it  would  bring  along  with  it  my  owe 


*  “  The  senselessness  of  joy  was  then  sublime.”  — Wordswirth  at 
c*i  aia  in  18)2  (see  his  sonnets),  looking  back  through  thirteen  years 
k>  the  great  era  of  soual  lesurrection,  in  1788-9,  from  a  sleep  of  tog 
untunes. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


357 


birthday  :  now,  one  codicil  in  my  general  vow  of  free¬ 
dom  had  been,  that  my  seventeenth  birthday  should 
not  find  me  at  school.  Still  I  needed  some  trifle  of 
preparation.  Especially  I  needed  a  little  money.  I 
wrote,  therefore,  to  the  only  confidential  friend  that  I 
had  —  viz.,  Lady  Carbery.  Originally,  as  early  frienda 
of  my  mother’s,  both  she  and  Lord  Carbery  had  distin¬ 
guished  me  at  Bath  and  elsewhere,  for  some  years,  by 
flattering  attentions  ;  and  for  the  last  three  years  in  par¬ 
ticular,  Lady  Carbery,  a  young  woman  some  ten  years 
older  than  myself,  and  who  was  as  remarkable  for  her 
intellectual  pretensions  as  she  was  for  her  beauty  and 
her  benevolence,  had  maintained  a  correspondence  with 
me  upon  questions  of  literature.  She  thought  too  highly 
of  my  powers  and  attainments,  and  everywhere  spoke  of 
me  with  an  enthusiasm  that,  if  I  had  been  five  or  six 
years  older,  and  had  possessed  any  personal  advantages, 
might  have  raised  smiles  at  her  expense.  To  her  I  now 
wrote,  requesting  the  loan  of  five  guineas.  A  whole 
week  passed  without  any  answer.  This  perplexed  and 
made  me  uneasy  :  for  her  ladyship  was  rich  by  a  vast 
fortune  removed  entirely  from  her  husband’s  control ; 
and,  as  I  felt  assured,  would  have  cheerfully  sent  me 
twenty  times  the  sum  asked,  unless  her  sagacity  had  sug¬ 
gested  some  suspicion  (which  seemed  impossible)  of  the 
real  purposes  which  I  contemplated  in  the  employment 
of  the  five  guineas.  Could  I  incautiously  have  said 
anything  in  my  own  letter  tending  that  way  ?  Cer¬ 
tainly  not  ;  then  why - -  But  at  that  moment  my 

speculations  were  cut  short  oy  a  letter  bearing  a  coro¬ 
net  ted  seal.  It  was  from  Lady  Carbery,  of  course,  and 
friclosed  ten  guineas  instead  of  five.  Slow  in  those 


358 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


days  were  the  mails  ;  besides  which,  Lady  Carbery  hap¬ 
pened  to  be  down  at  the  seaside,  whither  my  letter  had 
been  sent  after  her.  Now,  then,  including  my  own 
pocket-money,  I  possessed  a  dozen  guinea51  which  seemed 
sufficient  for  my  immediate  purpose  ;  an’d  all  ulterior 
emergencies,  as  the  reader  understands,  I  trampled  un¬ 
der  foot.  This  sum,  however,  spent  at  inns  on  the  most 
economic  footins;.  could  not  have  held  out  for  much 
above  a  calendar  month  ;  and  as  to  the  plan  of  selecting 
secondary  inns,  these  are  not  always  cheaper ;  but  the 
main  objection  is  —  that  in  the  solitary  stations  amongst 
the  mountains  (Cambrian  no  less  than  Cumbrian)  there 
*s  often  no  choice  to  be  found :  the  high-priced  inn  is 
the  only  one.  Even  this  dozen  of  guineas  it  became 
necessary  to  diminish  by  three.  The  age  of  “  vails  ” 
and  perquisites  to  three  or  four  servants  at  any  gentle¬ 
man’s  house  where  you  dined  —  this  age,  it  is  true,  had 
passed  away  by  thirty  years  perhaps.  But  that  flagrant 
abuse  had  no  connection  at  all  with  the  English  custom 
of  distributing  money  amongst  that  part  of  the  domestics 
whose  daily  labors  may  have  been  increased  by  a  visi 
tor’s  residence  in  the  family  for  some  considerable  space 
of  time.  This  custom  (almost  peculiar,  I  believe,  to 
the  English  gentry)  is  honorable  and  just.  I  person¬ 
ally  had  been  trained  by  my  mother,  who  detested  sor¬ 
did  habits,  to  look  upon  it  as  ignominious  in  a  gentleman 
to  leave  a  household  without  acknowledging  the  oblige 
ing  services  of  those  who  cannot  openly  remind  him  of 
their  claims.  On  this  occasion,  mere  necessity  corn- 
celled  me  to  overlook  the  housekeeper :  for  to  her  I 
could  not  have  offered  less  than  two  or  three  guineas 
wad,  as  she  was  a  fixture,  I  reflected  that  I  might  send 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


359 


it  a  ■)me  future  period.  To  three  inferior  servants  I 
fouik  that  I  ought  not  to  give  less  than  one  guinea  each: 

so  much,  therefore,  I  left  in  the  hands  of  G - ,  tho 

most  honorable  and  upright  of  boys ;  since  to  have 
given  it  myself  would  have  been  prematurely  to  publish 
my  purpose.  These  three  guineas  deducted,  I  still  had 
nine,  or  thereabouts.  And  now  all  things  were  settle  id, 
except  one :  the  when  was  settled,  and  the  how  ;  but 
not  the  whither.  That  was  still  subjudice . 

My  plan  originally  had  been  to  travel  northwards  — 
viz.,  to  the  region  of  the  English  Lakes.  That  little 
mountainous  district  lying  stretched  like  a  pavilion  be¬ 
tween  four  well-known  points  —  viz.,  the  small  towns  of 
Ulverstone  and  Penrith  as  its  two  poles  —  south  and 
north  ;  between  Kendal,  again,  on  the  east,  and  Egre- 
mont  on  the  west,  measuring  on  the  one  diameter  about 
forty  miles,  and  on  the  other  perhaps  thirty-five  —  had 
for  me  a  secret  fascination,  subtle,  sweet,  fantastic,  and 
even  from  my  seventh  or  eight  year,  spiritually  strong. 
The  southern  section  of  that  district,  about  eighteen  or 
twenty  miles  long,  which  bears  the  name  of  Furness, 
figures  in  the  eccentric  geography  of  English  law  as  a 
section  of  Lancashire,  though  separated  from  that  county 
by  the  estuary  of  Morecombe  Bay :  and  therefore,  as 
Lancashire  happened  to  be  my  own  native  county,  I 
had  from  childhood,  on  the  strength  of  this  mere  legal 
fiction  cherished  as  a  mystic  privilege,  slander  as  a  fila¬ 
ment  of  air,  some  fraction  of  denizenship  in  the  fairy 
little  domain  of  the  English  lakes.  The  major  part  of 
these  lakes  lies  in  Westmoreland  and  Cumberland:  but 
the  sweet  reposing  little  water  of  Esthwaite,  with  its  few 
smerald  fields,  and  the  grander  one  of  Coniston,  with 


860 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


the  sublime  cluster  of  mountain  groups,  and  the  lit  tie 
network  of  quiet  dells  lurking  about  its  head  *  all  the 
way  back  to  Grasmere,  lie  in  or  near  the  upper  chamber 
of  Furness;  and  all  these,  together  with  the  ruins  of 
the  once  glorious  abbey,  had  been  brought  out  not  many 
years  before  into  sunny  splendor  by  the  great  enchantrens 
of  that  generation  —  Anne  Radcliffe.  But  more  even 
than  Anne  Radcliffe  had  the  landscape  painters,  so  many 
and  so  various,  contributed  to  the  glorification  of  the 
English  lake  district;  drawing  out  and  impressing  upon 
the  heart  the  sanctity  of  repose  in  its  shy  recesses  — its 
Alpine  grandeurs  in  such  passes  as  those  of  Wastdale- 
head,  Langdale-head,  Borrowdale,  Kirkstone,  Idawsdale, 
&c.,  together  with  the  monastic  peace  which  seems  to 
brood  over  its  peculiar  form  of  pastoral  life,  so  much 
nobler  (as  Wordsworth  notices),  in  its  stern  simplicity 

*  “  Its  head:  ” —  That  end  of  a  lake  which  receives  the  rivulets  and 
Brooks  feeding  its  waters,  is  locally  called  its  head ;  and  in  continuation 
of  the  same  constructive  image,  the  counter  terminus,  which  discharges 
its  surplus  water,  is  called  its  foot.  By  the  way,  as  a  suggestion  from 
this  obvious  distinction,  I  may  remark,  that  in  all  cases  the  very  exist¬ 
ence  of  a  head  and  a  foot  to  any  sheet  of  water  defeats  the  malice  of 
Lord  Byron’s  sneer  against  the  lake  poets,  in  calling  them  by  the  con¬ 
temptuous  designation  of  “ pond  poets  ;  ”  a  variation  which  some  part 
of  the  public  readily  caught  up  as  a  natural  reverberation  of  that  spite¬ 
fulness,  so  petty  and  apparently  so  groundless,  which  notoriously  Lord 
Bryon  cherished  against  Wordsworth  steadily,  and  more  fitfully  against 
Southey.  The  effect  of  transforming  a  living  image  —  an  image  of 
restless  motion  —  into  an  image  of  foul  stagnation  was  tangibly  appre¬ 
hensible.  But  what  was  it  that  contradistinguished  the  “  vivi  lacus  ” 
of  Virgil  from  rotting  ponds  mantled  with  verdant  slime  ?  To  have,  ot 
not  to  have,  a  head  and  a  foot  (i.  e.,  a  principle  of  perpetual  change' 

at  the  very  heart  of  this  distinction;  and  to  substitute  for  lake 
term  which  ignores  and  negatives  the  very  differential  principle  that 
constitutes  a  lake  —  viz.,  its  current  and  its  eternai  mobility  —  is  ts 
*fter  an  insult,  in  which  the  insulted  party  has  no  interest  or  concern 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


361 


Uid  continual  conflict  with  danger  hidden  in  the  vast 
draperies  of  mist  overshadowing  the  hills,  and  amongst 
the  armies  of  snow  and  hail  arrayed  by  fierce  northern 
winters,  than  the  effeminate  shepherd’s  life  in  the  classical 
Arcadia,  or  in  the  flowery  pastures  of  Sicily. 

Amongst  these  attractions  that  drew  me  so  strongly 
to  the  Lakes,  there  had  also  by  that  time  arisen  in  this 
lovely  region  the  deep  deep  magnet  (as  to  me  only  in  all 
this  world  it  then  was)  of  William  Wordsworth.  Inev¬ 
itably  this  close  connection  of  the  poetry  which  most 
of  all  had  moved  me  with  the  particular  region  and 
scenery  that  most  of  all  had  fastened  upon  my  affections, 
and  led  captive  my  imagination,  was  calculated,  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  to  impress  upon  my  fluctuating 
deliberations  a  summary  and  decisive  bias.  But  the 
very  depth  of  the  impressions  which  had  been  made 
upon  me,  either  as  regarded  the  poetry  or  the  scenery, 
was  too  solemn  and  (unaffectedly  I  may  say  it)  too  spir¬ 
itual,  to  clothe  itself  in  any  hasty  or  chance  movement 
as  at  all  adequately  expressing  its  strength,  or  reflecting 
its  hallowed  character.  If  you,  reader,  were  a  devout 
Mahometan,  throwing  gazes  of  mystical  awe  daily  to¬ 
wards  Mecca,  or  were  a  Christian  devotee  looking  with 
the  same  rapt  adoration  to  St.  Peter’s  at  Rome,  or  to  El 
Kodah  —  the  Holy  City  of  Jerusalem  —  (so  called  even 
amongst  the  Arabs,  who  hate  both  Christian  and  Jew), 
how  painfully  would  it  jar  upon  your  sensibilities,  if 
some  friend,  sweeping  past  you  upon  a  high  road,  with  a 
train  (according  to  the  circumstances)  of  dromedaries  oi 
of  wheel  carriages,  should  suddenly  pull  up,  and  say, 
*  Come,  old  fellow,  jump  up  alongside  of  me,  I 'm  off  for 
ibe  Red  Sea,  and  here ’s  a  spare  dromedary  ;  ”  or  (i  off 


362 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


for  Rome,  and  here ’s  a  well-cushioned  barouche  ;  ”  sea* 
sonable  and  convenient  it  might  happen  that  the  in  vita* 
fcion  were  ;  but  still  it  would  shock  you  that  a  journey 
which,  with  or  without  your  consent,  could  not  but  as¬ 
sume  the  character  eventually  of  a  saintly  pilgrimage, 
should  arise  and  take  its  initial  movement  upon  a  casual 
summons,  or  upon  a  vulgar  opening  of  momentary  con¬ 
venience.  In  the  present  case,  under  no  circumstances 
should  I  have  dreamed  of  presenting  myself  to  Words¬ 
worth.  The  principle  of  “  veneration  ”  (to  speak  phren- 
ologically)  was  by  many  degrees  too  strong  in  me  for 
any  such  overture  on  my  part.  Hardly  could  I  have 
found  the  courage  to  meet  and  to  answer  such  an  over¬ 
ture  coming  from  liha.  I  could  not  even  tolerate  the 
prospect  (as  a  bare  possibility)  of  Wordsworth’s  hearing 
my  name  first  of  all  associated  with  some  case  of  pecu¬ 
niary  embarrassment.  And  apart  from  all  that. ,  it  vul¬ 
garized  the  whole  “  interest  ”  (no  other  term  can  I  find 
to  express  the  case  collectively)  —  the  whole  “  interest  ” 
of  poetry  and  the  enchanted  land:  equally  it  vulgarized 
person  and  thing,  the  vineyard  and  the  vintage,  the  gar¬ 
dens  and  the  ladies,  of  the  Hesperides,  together  with  all 
their  golden  fruitage,  if  I  should  rush  upon  them  in  a 
hurried  and  thoughtless  state  of  excitement.  I  remem¬ 
bered  the  fine  caution  on  this  subject  involved  in  a  tra¬ 
dition  preserved  by  Pausanias.  Those  (he  tells  us)  who 
visited  by  night  the  great  field  of  Marathon  (where  at 
certain  times  phantom  cavalry  careered  —  flying  and  pur- 
luing)  in  a  temper  of  vulgar  sight-seeking,  and  under  no 
higher  impulse  than  the  degrading  one  of  curiosity,  were 
f£et  and  punished  severely  in  the  dark,  by  the  same  soi* 
people,  I  presume,  as  those  who  handled  Falstaff  sa 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


363 


/o uglily  in  the  venerable  shades  of  Windsor  :  whilst  loyal 
visitors,  who  came  bringing  a  true  and  fiial  sympathy 
with  the  grand  deeds  of  their  Athenian  ancestors,  who 
came  as  children  of  the  same  hearth,  met  with  the  most 
gracious  acceptance,  and  fulfilled  all  the  purposes  of  a 
pilgrimage  or  sacred  mission.  Under  my  present  cir¬ 
cumstances,  I  saw  that  the  very  motives  of  love  and  hono^, 
which  would  have  inclined  the  scale  so  powerfully  in 
favor  of  the  northern  lakes,  were  exactly  those  which 
drew  most  heavily  in  the  other  direction  —  the  circum¬ 
stances  being  what  they  were  as  to  hurry  and  perplexity. 
And  just  at  that  moment  suddenly  unveiled  itself  another 
powerful  motive  against  taking  the  northern  direction 
• —  viz.,  consideration  for  my  mother  —  which  made  my 
Sieart  recoil  from  giving  her  too  great  a  shock ;  and  in 
what  other  way  could  it  be  mitigated  than  by  my  per¬ 
sonal  presence  in  a  case  of  emergency?  For  such  a 
purpose  North  Wales  would  be  the  best  haven  to  make 
for,  since  the  road  thither  from  my  present  home  lay 
through  Chester  —  where  at  that  time  my  mother  had 
fixed  her  residence. 

If  I  had  hesitated  (and  hesitate  I  did  very  sincerely) 
about  such  a  mode  of  expressing  the  consideration  due 
to  my  mother,  it  was  not  from  any  want  of  decision  in 
my  feeling,  but  really  because  I  feared  to  be  taunted 
with  this  act  of  tenderness,  as  arguing  an  exaggerated 
estimate  of  my  own  importance  in  my  mother’s  eyes. 
To  be  capable  of  causing  any  alarming  shock,  must  I  nol 
suppose  myself  an  object  of  special  interest  ?  No  :  1 
£id  not  agree  to  that  inference.  But  no  matter.  Bettei 
to  stand  ten  thousand  sneers,  than  one  abiding  pang,  such 
time  could  not  abolish,  of  bitter  self-reproach.  So  I 


m 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


resolved  to  face  this  taunt  without  flinching,  and  to  steel 
&  course  for  St.John’s  Priory  —  my  mother’s  residence 
near  Chester.  At  the  very  instant  of  coming  to  this  re¬ 
solution,  a  singular  accident  occurred  to  confirm  it.  On 
the  very  day  before  my  rash  journey  commenced,  I  re¬ 
ceived  through  the  post-office  a  letter  bearing  this  ad¬ 
dress  in  a  foreign  handwriting  —  A  Monsieur  Monsieur 
de  Quincy ,  Chester.  This  iteration  of  the  Monsieur  as 
a  courteous  French  fashion*  for  effecting  something 
equivalent  to  our  own  Esquire ,  was  to  me  at  that  time 
an  unintelligible  novelty.  The  best  way  to  explain  it 
was  to  read  the  letter,  which,  to  the  extent  of  mon  possible 
I  did  ;  but  vainly  attempted  to  decipher.  So  much,  how¬ 
ever,  I  spelled  out  as  satisfied  me  that  the  letter  could 
not  have  been  meant  for  myself.  The  post-mark  was,  I 
think,  Hamburgh :  but  the  date  within  was  from  some 
place  in  Normandy ;  and  eventually  it  came  out  that  the 
person  addressed  was  a  poor  emigrant,  some  relative  of 
Quatremere  de  Quincy, f  who  had  come  to  Chester,  prob- 


*  “  As  a  courteous  French  fashion — And  not  at  all  a  modern 
fashion.  That  famous  Countess  of  Derby  (Charlotte  de  Tremouille) 
vho  presided  in  the  defence  of  Lathom  House  (which,  and  not  Ivnows- 
ley,  was  then  the  capital  domicile  of  the  Stanleys),  when  addressing 
Prince  Rupert,  sometimes  superscribes  her  envelope  A  Monseigneur  It 
Prince  Rupert ,  but  sometimes  A  Monsieur  Monsieur  le  Prince  Rupert , 
This  was  in  1644,  the  year  of  Marston  Moor,  and  the  penultimate  yeai 
of  the  Parliamentary  War. 

t  “  De  Quincy  :  ” —  The  family  of  De  Quincey,  or  Quincy,  or  Quin- 
cie  (spelt  of  course,  like  all  proper  names,  under  the  anarchy  prevailing 
is  to  orthography  until  the  last  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  in  every 
»cssible  forir  open  to  human  caprice),  was  originally  Norwegian.  Early 
the  eleventh  century  this  family  emigrated  from  Norway  to  the  South 
and  since  then  it  has  thrown  off  three  separate  swarms  —  French,  Eng 
and  Anglo-A  nerican,  each  of  which  writes  the  name  with  its  owi 
sfight  variations  A  biief  outline  of  their  migrations  will  be  fou*d  i| 
fee  Appendix. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER.  86v 

My  as  a  teacher  of  Frencn  ;  and  now  in  1802  found 
his  return  to  France  made  easy  by  the  brief  and  hollow 
peace  of  Amiens.  Such  an  obscure  person  was  natur¬ 
ally  unknown  to  any  English  post-office ;  and  the  letter 
had  been  forwarded  to  myself,  as  the  oldest  male  mem¬ 
ber  of  a  family  at  that  time  necessarily  well  known  in 
Chester. 

I  was  astonished  to  find  myself  translated  by  a  touch 
of  the  pen  not  only  into  a  Monsieur,  but  even  into  a 
self-multiplied  Monsieur  ;  or,  speaking  algebraically,  into 
the  square  of  Monsieur  ;  having  a  chance  at  some  future 
day  of  being  perhaps  cubed  into  Monsieur8.  From  the 
letter,  as  I  had  hastily  torn  it  open,  out  dropped  a  draft 
upon  Smith,  Payne,  &  Smith  for  somewhere  about  forty 
guineas.  At  this  stage  of  the  revelations  opening  upon 
me,  it  might  be  fancied  that  the  interest  of  the  case 
thickened  :  since  undoubtedly,  if  this  windfall  could  be 
seriously  meant  for  myself,  and  no  mistake ,  never  de¬ 
scended  upon  the  head  of  man,  in  the  outset  of  a  peril¬ 
ous  adventure,  aid  more  seasonable,  nay,  more  melodra¬ 
matically  critical.  But  alas  !  my  eye  is  quick  to  value 
the  logic  of  evil  chances.  Prophet  of  evil  I  ever  am  to 
myself :  forced  forever  into  sorrowful  auguries  that  I 
have  no  power  to  hide  from  my  own  heart,  no,  not 
"through  one  night’s  solitary  dreams.  In  a  moment  1 
taw  too  plainly  that  I  was  not  Monsieur2.  I  might  be 
Monsieur,  but  not  Monsieur  to  the  second  power .  Who 
._deed  could  be  my  debtor  to  the  amount  of  forty  guin- 
jas  ?  If  there  really  was  such  a  person,  why  had  he 
been  so  many  years  in  liquidating  his  debt  ?  IIow 
ihameful  to  suffer  me  to  enter  upon  my  seventeenth 
fear,  before  he  made  known  his  debt  or  even  his  amiable 


S66 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


existence.  Doubtless,  in  strict  morals,  tins  dreadful  pro* 
crastination  could  not  be  justified.  Still,  as  the  man 
was  apparently  testifying  bis  penitence,  and  in  the  most 
practical  form  (viz.,  payment),  I  felt  perfectly  willing  to 
g~ant  him  absolution  for  past  sins,  and  a  general  release 
from  all  arrears,  if  any  should  remain,  through  all  com¬ 
ing  generations.  But  alas  !  the  mere  seasonableness  of 
the  remittance  floored  my  hopes.  A  five-guinea  debtor 
might  have  been  a  conceivable  being  :  such  a  debtor 
might  exist  in  the  flesh :  him  I  could  believe  in ;  but 
further  my  faith  would  not  go  ;  and  if  the  money  were, 
after  all,  bo?id  jide  meant  for  myself,  clearly  it  must  come 
from  the  Fiend :  in  which  case  it  became  an  open  ques¬ 
tion  whether  I  ought  to  take  it.  At  this  stage  the  case 
had  become  a  Sphinx’s  riddle ;  and  the  solution,  if  any, 
must  be  sought  in  the  letter.  But,  as  to.  the  letter,  O 
heaven  and  earth  !  if  the  Sphinx  of  old  conducted  her 
intercourse  with  Oedipus  by  way  of  letter,  and  pro¬ 
pounded  her  wicked  questions  through  the  post-office  of 
Thebes,  it  strikes  me  that  she  needed  only  to  have  used 
French  penmanship,  in  order  to  baffle  that  fatal  deciph¬ 
erer  of  riddles  forever  and  ever.  At  Bath,  where  the 
French  emigrants  mustered  in  great  strength  (six  thou¬ 
sand,  I  have  heard)  during  the  three  closing  years  of  the 
last  century,  I,  through  my  mother’s  acquaintance  with  • 
several  leading  families  amongst  them,  had  gained  a 
large  experience  of  French  calligraphy.  From  this  ex¬ 
perience  I  had  learned  that  the  French  aristocracy  still 
persisted  ( did  persist  at  that  period —  1797-1800)  in  a 
traditional  contempt  for  all  accomplishments  of  that  class 
68  clerkly  and  plebeian,  fitted  only  (as  Shakspeare  says 
when  recording  similar  prejudices  amongst  his  own 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EAI EK. 


36'i 


eountrymen)  to  do  “yeoman’s  service.”  One  and  all 
they  delegated  the  care  of  their  spelling  to  valets  and 
femme s-de-cha mbr e ,  sometimes  even  those  persons  who 
scoured  their  blankets  and  counterpanes,  scoured  their 
spelling  —  that  is  to  say,  their  week-day  spelling ;  but 
as  to  their  Sunday  spelling,  that  superfine  spelling  which 
they  reserved  for  their  efforts  in  literature,  this  was  con¬ 
signed  to  the  care  of  compositors.  Letters  written  by 
the  royal  family  of  France  in  1792-3  still  survive,  in 
the  memoirs  of  Clery  and  others  amongst  their  most 
faithful  servants,  which  display  the  utmost  excess  of  ig¬ 
norance  as  to  grammar  and  orthography.  Then,  as  to 
the  penmanship,  all  seemed  to  write  the  same  hand,  and 
with  the  same  piece  of  most  ancient  wood,  or  venerable 
skewer ;  all  alike  scratching  out  stiff  perpendicular  let¬ 
ters,  as  if  executed  (I  should  say)  with  a  pair  of  snufferg. 
I  do  not  speak  thus  in  any  spirit  of  derision.  Such  accom¬ 
plishments  were  wilfully  neglected,  and  even  ambitious¬ 
ly,  as  if  in  open  proclamation  of  scorn  for  the  arts  by 
which  humbler  people  oftentimes  got  their  bread.  And 
i  man  of  rank  would  no  more  conceive  himself  dishon¬ 
ored  by  any  deficiencies  in  the  snobbish  accomplishments 
of  penmanship,  grammar,  or  correct  orthography,  than  a 
gentleman  amongst  ourselves  by  inexpertness  in  the 
mystery  of  cleaning  shoes,  or  of  polishing  furniture. 
The  result,  however,  from  this  systematic  and  ostentatious 
neglect  of  calligraphy  is  oftentimes  most  perplexing  to 
all  who  are  called  upon  to  decipher  their  MSS.  It  hap¬ 
pens,  indeed,  that  the  product  of  this  carelessness  thus 
tar  differs  :  always  it  k  coarse  and  inelegant,  but  some¬ 
times  (say  in  ^th  of  the  cases)  it  becomes  specially 
ktgible.  Far  otherwise  v\s  the  case  oefore  me.  Being 


568 


additions  to  the 


greatly  hurried  on  this  my  fart  veil  day,  I  could  not  make 
out  two  consecutive  sentences.  Unfortunately  one-half 
of  a  sentence  sufficed  to  show  that  the  inclosure  be- 
longed  to  some  needy  Frenchman  living  in  a  country 
not  his  own,  and  struggling  probably  with  the  ordinary 
evils  of  such  a  condition  —  friendlessness  and  exile. 
Before  the  letter  came  into  my  hands,  it  had  already  suf¬ 
fered  some  days’  delay.  When  I  noticed  this,  I  found 
my  sympathy  with  the  poor  stranger  naturally  quick¬ 
ened.  Already,  and  unavoidably,  he  had  been  suffering 
from  the  vexation  of  a  letter  delayed;  but  henceforth, 
and  continually  more  so,  he  must  be  suffering  from  the 
anxieties  of  a  letter  gone  astray.  Throughout  this  fare¬ 
well  day  I  was  unable  to  carve  out  any  opportunity  for 
going  up  to  the  Manchester  post-office ;  and  without  a 
distinct  explanation  in  my  own  person,  exonerating  my¬ 
self,  on  the  written  acknowledgment  of  the  post-office, 
from  all  farther  responsibility,  I  was  most  reluctant  to 
give  up  the  letter.'  It  is  true,  that  the  necessity  of  com 
mitting  a  forgery  (which  crime  in  those  days  was  pun 
ished  inexorably  with  death),  before  the  money  couk' 
have  been  fraudulently  appropriated,  would,  if  made. 
Known  to  the  public,  have  acquitted  any  casual  holder  of 
be  letter  from  all  suspicion  of  dishonest  intentions.  Bui 
the  danger  was,  that  during  the  suspense  and  progress 
*„f  the  case,  whilst  awaiting  its  final  settlement,  ugly 
rumors  should  arise  and  cling  to  one’s  name  amongst 
the  many  that  would  hear  only  a  fragmentary  version 
of  the  whole  affair. 

At  length  all  was  ready:  midsummer,  like  an  army 
with  banners,  was  moving  through  the  heavens  :  already 
fce  longest  day  had  passed  ;  those  arrangements,  few 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


36§ 


Rnd  imperfect,  through  which  I  attempted  some  partia? 
evasion  of  disagreeable  contingencies  likely  to  arise,  had 
been  finished :  what  more  remained  for  me  to  do  of 
things  that  I  was  able  to  do  ?  None  ;  and  yet,  though 
now  at  last  free  to  move  off,  I  lingered ;  lingered  as  un¬ 
der  some  sense  of  dim  perplexity,  or  even  of  relenting 
love  for  the  very  captivity  itself  which  I  was  making  so 
violent  an  effort  to  abjure,  but  more  intelligibly  for  all 
the  external  objects  —  living  or  inanimate  —  by  which 
that  captivity  had  been  surrounded  and  gladdened. 
What  I  was  hastening  to  desert,  nevertheless  I  grieved 
to  desert ;  and  but  for  the  foreign  letter,  I  might  have 
long  continued  to  loiter  and  procrastinate.  That,  how¬ 
ever,  through  various  and  urgent  motives  which  it  sug¬ 
gested,  quickened  my  movements  ;  and  the  same  hour 
which  brought  this  letter  into  my  hands,  witnessed  my 
resolution  (uttered  audibly  to  myself  in  my  study),  that 
early  on  the  next  day  I  would  take  my  departure.  A 
day,  therefore,  had  at  length  arrived,  had  somewhat 
suddenly  arrived,  which  would  be  the  last,  the  very 
last,  on  which  I  should  make  my  appearance  in  the 
school. 

It  is  a  just  and  a  feeling  remark  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  that 
we  never  do  anything  consciously  for  the  last  time  (of 
things,  that  is  to  say,  which  we  have  been  long  in  the 
habit  of  doing),  without  sadness  of  heart.  The  secret 
»ense  of  a  farewell  or  testamentary  act  I  carried  along 
with  me  into  every  word  or  deed  of  this  memorable  day. 
4gent  or  patient,  singly  or  one  of  a  crowd,  I  heard  for- 
ever  some  sullen  echo  of  valediction  in  every  change, 
casual  or  periodic,  that  varied  the  revolving  hours  from 
toorning  to  night.  Most  of  all  1  felt  this  valedictory 

24 


370 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


sound  a.3  a  pathetic  appeal,  when  the  closing  hour  of  fiva 
p.  m.  brought  with  it  the  solemn  evening  service  of  tha 
English  Church  —  read  by  Mr.  Lawson  ;  read  now,  as 
always,  under  a  reverential  stillness  of  the  entire  school. 
Already  in  itself,  without  the  solemnity  of  prayers,  the 
decaying  light  of  the  dying  day  suggests  a  mood  of  pen¬ 
sive  and  sympathetic  sadness.  And  if  the  changes  in 
the  light  are  less  impressively  made  known  so  early  as  ‘ 
five  o’clock  in  the  depth  of  summer-tide,  not  the  less  we 
are  sensible  of  being  as  near  to  the  hours  of  repose,  and 
to  the  secret  dangers  of  the  night,  as  if  the  season  were 
mid-winter.  Even  thus  far  there  was  something  tha<; 
oftentimes  had  profoundly  impressed  me  in  this  evening 
liturgy,  and  its  special  prayer  against  the  perils  of  dark ' 
ness.  But  greatly  was  that  effect  deepened  by  the  sym¬ 
bolic  treatment  which  this  liturgy  gives  to  this  darkness 
and  to  these  perils.  Naturally,  when  contemplating  that 
treatment,  I  had  been  led  vividly  to  feel  the  memorable 
rhabdomancy  *  or  magical  power  of  evocation  which 

*  “  Rhabdomancy — The  Greek  word  manteia  (/xavre la),  repre¬ 
sented  by  the  English  form  mancy ,  constitutes  the  stationary  element 
in  a  large  family  of  compounds:  it  means  divination ,  or  the  art  of 
magically  deducing  some  weight}1-  inference  (generally  prophetic)  from 
any  one  of  the  many  dark  sources  sanctioned  by  Pagan  superstition. 
And  universally  the  particular  source  relied  on  is  expressed  in  the 
nrior  half  of  the  compound.  For  instance,  oneiros  is  the  Greek  word 
for  a  cream  ;  and  therefore  oneiromancy  indicates  that  mode  cf 
*-ophecy  which  is  founded  upon  the  interpretation  of  dream?.  Ornis , 
again  (in  the  genitive  case  crnithos)  is  the  common  Greek  word  for  a 
bird ;  accordingly  ornithomancy  means  prophecy  founded  on  the  par- 
aeular  mode  of  flight  noticed  amongst  any  casual  gathering  of  birds. 
Cheir  (xei'p)  is  Greek  for  the  hand;  whence  cheiromancy  expresses  tha 
art  of  predicting  a  man’s  fortune  by  the  lines  in  his  hand,  or  (undef 
its  Latin  form  from  palma)  palmistry.  Nekros,  a  dead  man,  an« 
)ottsecp:.efitly  necromancy,  prophecy  founded  on  the  answei  extorts 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


371 


Christianity  has  put  forth  here  and  in  parallel  cases. 
The  ordinary  pnysical  rhabdomantist,  who  undertaken 


lither  from  phantoms,  as  by  the  Witch  of  Endor;  or  from  the  corpse 
itself,  as  by  Lucan’s  witch  Erictho.  I  have  allowed  myself  to  wander 
into  this  ample  illustration  of  the  case,  having  for  many  years  been 
taxed  by  ingenuous  readers  (confessing  their  own  classical  ignorance) 
with  too  scanty  explanations  of  mj'-  meaning.  I  go  on  to  say  that 
the  Greek  word  rhabdos  (pa/?Sos),  a  rod — not  that  sort  of  rod  which 
the  Roman  lictors  carried,  viz.,  a  bundle  of  twigs,  but  a  wrand  about 
as  thick  as  a  commor  cedar  pencil,  or,  at  most,  as  the  ordinary  brass 
rod  of  stair-carpets — this,  when  made  from  a  willow-tree,  furnished 
of  old,  and  furnishes  to  this  day  in  a  southern  county  of  England,  a 
potent  instrument  of  divination.  But  let  it  be  understood  that  divina¬ 
tion  expresses  an  idea  ampler  by  much  than  the  word  prophecy: 
whilst  even  this  word  prophecy,  already  more  limited  than  divination, 
is  most  injuriously  narrowed  in  our  received  translation  of  the  Bible. 
To  unveil  or  decipher  what  is  hidden  —  that  is,  in  effect,  the  meaning 
of  divination.  And  accordingly,  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul,  the  phrase 
gifts  of  prophecy  never  once  indicates  what  the  English  reader  sup¬ 
poses,  but  exegetic  gifts,  gifts  of  interpretation  applied  to  what  is 
daik,  of  analysis  applied  to  what  is  logically  perplexed,  of  expansion 
applied  to  what  is  condensed,  of  practical  improvement  applied  to 
what  might  else  be  overlooked  as  purely  speculative.  In  Somerset¬ 
shire,  which  is  a  county  the  most  ill-watered  of  all  in  England,  upon 
building  a  house,  there  arises  uniformly  a  difficulty  in  selecting  a 
proper  spot  for  sinking  a  well.  The  remedy  is,  to  call  in  a  set  of 
local  rhabdomantists.  These  men  traverse  the  adjacent  ground,  hold- 
tig  the  willow  rod  horizontally:  w'herever  that  dips,  or  inclines  itself 
spontaneously  to  the  ground,  there  will  be  found  water.  I  have  my¬ 
self  not  only  seen  the  process  tried  with  success,  but  have  witnessed 
the  enormous  trouble,  delay,  and  expense,  accruing  to  those  of  the  op¬ 
posite  faction  who  refused  to  benefit  by  this  art.  To  pursue  the  tenta¬ 
tive  plan  (i.  e.,  the  plan  of  trying  for  water,  by  boring  at  haphazard* 
tnded,  so  far  as  I  was  aware,  in  multiplied  vexation.  In  reality,  the,?* 
joor  men  are,  after  all,  more  philosophic  than  those  who  scornfully  re¬ 
ject.  their  services.  Eor  the  artists  obey  unconsciously  the  logic  of 
Lord  Bacon:  they  build  upon  a  long  chain  of  induction,  upon  the  uni¬ 
form  results  of  their  life-long  experience.  But  the  counter  faction  do 
jot  deny  this  experience:  all  tney  have  to  allege  is,  that,  agreeably 
^  any  laws  known  to  themselves  a  priori,  there  ought  not  to  be  anj 


372 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


to  evoke  from  the  dark  chamberc  of  our  earth  wells  o! 
water  lying  far  below  its  surface,  and  more  rarely  tc 
evoke  minerals,  or  hidden  deposits  of  jewels  and  gold, 
by  some  magnetic  sympathy  between  his  rod  and  the 
occult  object  of  his  divination,  is  able  to  indicate  the 
gpot  at  which  this  object  can  be  hopefully  sought  for. 
Not  otherwise  has  the  marvellous  magnetism  of  Chris- 
tianity  called  up  from  darkness  sentiments  the  most 
august,  previously  inconceivable  - —  formless  —  and  with¬ 
out  life ;  for  previously  there  had  been  no  religious 
philosophy  equal  to  the  task  of  ripening  such  senti¬ 
ments  ;  but  also,  at  the  same  time,  by  incarnating  these 
sentiments  in  images  of  corresponding  grandeur,  has  so 
exalted  their  character  as  to  lodge  them  eternally  in 
human  hearts. 

Flowers  for  example,  that  are  so  pathetic  in  theii 
beauty,  frail  as  the  clouds,  and  in  their  coloring  as  gor¬ 
geous  as  the  heavens,  had  through  thousands  of  years 
been  the  heritage  of  children  —  honored  as  the  jewelry 
of  God  only  by  them ,  when  suddenly  the  voice  of  Chris 
tianity,  countersigning  the  voice  of  infancy,  raised  them 
to  a  grandeur  transcending  the  Hebrew  throne,  although 
founded  by  God  himself,  and  pronounced  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory  not  to  be  arrayed  like  one  of  these.  Winds 


such  experience.  Now,  a  sufficient  course  of  facts  overthrows  all 
antecedent  plausibilities.  Whatever  science  or  scepticism  may  say, 
most  of  the  teakettles  in  the  vale  of  Wrington  are  filled  by  rhcibdo- 
mcincy.  And  after  all,  the  supposed  a  priori  scruples  against  this 
rhabdomancy  are  only  such  scruples  as  would,  antecedently  to  a  trial 
tave  pronounced  the  mariner’s  compass  impossible.  There  is  in  both 
S&ses  alike  a  blind  sympathy  of  some  unknown  force,  which  no  mar 
tan  explain,  with  a  passive  index  that  practically  guides  you  aright  — 
if  Me phistophe’es  should  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  affair. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


37£ 


again,  hurricanes,  the  eternal  breathings  soft  or  loud,  of 
ASolian  power,  wherefore  had  they,  raving  or  sleeping, 
escaped  all  moral  arrest  and  detention  ?  Simply  because 
vain  it  were  to  offer  a  nest  for  the  reception  of  some  new 
moral  birth,  whilst  no  religion  is  yet  moving  amongst  men 
that  can  furnish  such  a  birth.  Vain  is  the  imase  that 

o 

should  illustrate  a  heavenly  sentiment,  if  the  sentimen 
is  yet  unborn.  Then,  first,  when  it  had  become  neces¬ 
sary  to  the  purposes  of  a  spiritual  religion  that  the  spirit 
of  man,  as  the  fountain  of  all  religion,  should  in  some 
commensurate  reflex  image  have  its  grandeur  and  its 
mysteriousness  emblazoned,  suddenly  the  pomp  and 
mysterious  path  of  winds  and  tempests,  blowing  whither 
they  list,  and  from  what  fountains  no  man  knows,  are 
cited  from  darkness  and  neglect,  to  give  and  to  receive 
reciprocally  an  impassioned  glorification,  where  the  lower 
mystery  enshrines  and  illustrates  the  higher.  Call  for 
the  grandest  of  all  earthly  spectacles,  what  is  that f  It 
is  the  sun  going  to  his  rest.  Call  for  the  grandest  of  all 
human  sentiments,  what  is  that  ?  It  is,  that  man  should 
forget  his  anger  before  he  lies  down  to  sleep.  And 
these  two  grandeurs,  the  mighty  sentiment  and  tho 
mighty  spectacle  are  by  Christianity  married  together. 

Here  again,  in  this  prayer,  “  Lighten  our  darkness, 
we  beseech  thee,  O  Lord  !  ”  were  the  darkness  and  the 
great  shadows  of  night  made  symbolically  significant : 
these  great  power,  Night  and  Darkness,  that  belong  to 
iboriginal  Chaos,  were  made  representative  of  the  perils 
that  continually  menace  poor  afflicted  human  nature. 
With  deepest  sympathy  I  acccompanied  the  prayer 
against  the  perils  of  darkness  —  perils  that  I  seemed  to 
Gee,  in  the  ambush  of  midnight  solitude,  brooding  around 


574 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


the  beds  of  sleeping  nations  ;  perils  from  even  worse 
forms  of  darkness  shrouded  within  the  recesses  of  blind 
human  hearts ;  perils  from  temptations  weaving  unseen 
snares  for  cur  footing  ;  perils  from  the  limitations  of  out 
own  misleading  knowledge. 

O  o 

WANDERINGS  IN  NORTH  WALES.45 

On  leaving  Manchester,  by  a  southwestern  route,  to* 
wards  Chester  and  Wales,  the  first  town  that  I  reached 
(to  the  best  of  my  remembrance)  was  Altrincham  — 
colloquially  called  Aivtrigem.  When  a  child  of  three 
years  old,  and  suffering  from  the  hooping-cough,  I  had 
been  carried  for  change  of  air  to  different  places  on  the 
Lancashire  coast ;  and,  in  order  to  benefit  by  as  large  a 
compass  as  possible  of  varying  atmospheres,  I  and  my 
nurse  had  been  made  to  rest  for  the  first  night  of  our 
tour  at  this  cheerful  little  town  of  Altrincham.  On  the 
next  morning,  which  ushered  in  a  most  dazzling  day  of 
July,  I  rose  earlier  than  my  nurse  fully  approved  :  but 
in  no  long  time  she  found  it  advisible  to  follow  my  ex¬ 
ample  ;  and,  after  putting  me  through  my  morning’s 
drill  of  ablutions  and  the  Lord’s  prayer,  no  sooner  had 
she  fully  arranged  my  petticoats,  than  she  lifted  me  up 
in  her  arms,  threw  open  the  window,  and  let  me  suddenly 
look  down  upon  the  gayest  scene  I  had  ever  beheld  — - 
viz.,  the  little  market-place  of  Altrincham,  at  eight  o’clock 
in  the  morning.  It  happened  to  be  the  market-day  ;  and 
[,  who  till  then  had  never  consciously  been  in  any  town 
whatever,  was  equally  astonished  and  delighted  with  the 
novel  gayety  of  the  scene.  Fruits,  such  as  can  be  had 
jl  July,  and  flowers  were  scattered  about  in  profusion 
Sven  the  stalls  of  the  butchers,  from  their  brilliant  clean 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


375 


Hu  ess,  appeared  attractive :  and  the  bonny  young  women 
of  Altrincham  were  all  tripping  about  in  caps  and  aprons 
coquettishly  disposed.  The  general  hilarity  of  the  scene 
at  this  early  hour,  with  the  low  murmurings  of  pleasur¬ 
able  conversation  and  laughter,  that  rose  up  like  a  foun¬ 
tain  to  the  open  window,  left  so  profound  an  impression 
upon  me  that  I  never  lost  it.  All  this  occurred,  as  I 
have  said,  about  eight  o’clock  on  a  superb  July  moi  ning. 
Exactly  at  that  time  of  the  morning,  on  exactly  such  an¬ 
other  heavenly  day  of  July,  did  I,  leaving  Manchester  at 
six  A.  m.,  naturally  enough  find  myself  in  the  centre  ol 
the  Altrincham  market-place.  Nothing  had  altered. 
There  were  the  very  same  fruits  and  flowers  ;  the  same 
bonny  young  women  tripping  up  and  down  in  the  same 
(no,  not  the  same)  coquettish  bonnets  ;  everything  was 
apparently  the  same :  perhaps  the  window  of  my  bed¬ 
room  was  still  open,  only  my  nurse  and  I  were  not  look¬ 
ing  out ;  for  alas !  on  recollection,  fourteen  years  pre¬ 
cisely  had  passed  since  then.  Breakfast  time,  however, 
is  always  a  cheerful  stage  of  the  day  ;  if  a  man  can  for¬ 
get  his  cares  at  any  season,  it  is  then  ;  and  after  a  walk 
of  seven  miles  it  is  doubly  so.  I  felt  it  at  the  time,  and 
have  stopped,  therefore,  to  notice  it,  as  a  singular  coinci¬ 
dence,  that  twice,  and  by  the  merest  accident,  I  should 
find  myself,  precisely  as  the  clocks  on  a  July  morning 
were  all  striking  eight,  drawing  inspiration  of  pleasura¬ 
ble  feelings  from  the  genial  sights  and  sounds  in  the 
little  market-place  of  Altrincham.  There  I  breakfasted  ; 
and  already  by  the  two  hours’  exercise  I  felt  mysell 
half  restored  to  healtn.  After  an  hour’s  rest,  I  started 
igain  upon  my  journey  ;  ail  my  gloom  and  despondency 
vere  already  retiring  to  the  rear ;  and,  as  I  left  Ail 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


3/G 

rincham,  I  said  to  myself,  “All  places,  it  seems,  are  not 
WhisjDering  Galleries.”  The  distance  between  Man¬ 
chester  and  Chester  was  about  forty  miles.  What  it  is 
under  railway  changes,  I  know  not.  This  I  planned  to 
walk  in  two  days  ;  for,  though  the  whole  might  have 
been  performed  in  one,  I  saw  no  use  in  exhausting  my¬ 
self  ;  and  my  walking  powers  were  rusty  from  long 
disuse.  I  wished  to  bisect  the  journey  ;  and,  as  nearly 
as  I  could  expect  —  i.  e .,  within  two  or  three  miles  — ■ 
such  a  bisection  was  attained  in  a  clean  roadside  inn,  of 
the  class,  so  commonly  found  in  England.  A  kind, 
motherly  landlady,  easy  in  her  circumstances,  having  no 
motive  for  rapacity,  and  looking  for  her  livelihood  much 
less  to  her  inn  than  to  her  farm,  guaranteed  to  me  a  safe 
and  profound  night’s  rest.  On  the  following  morning 
there  remained  not  quite  eighteen  miles  between  myself 
and  venerable  Chester.  Before  I  reached  it,  so  mighty 
now  (as  ever  before  and  since)  had  become  the  benefit 
from  the  air  and  the  exercise,  that  oftentimes  I  felt  in¬ 
ebriated  and  crazy  with  ebullient  spirit.  But  for  the 
accursed  letter,  which  sometimes 

“  Came  over  me, 

As  doth  the  raven  o’er  the  infected  house,” 

I  should  have  too  much  forgot  my  gravity  under  thi3 
new-born  health.  For  two  hours  before  reaching  Ches¬ 
ter,  from  the  accident  of  the  southwest  course  which  the 
road  itself  pursued,  I  saw  held  up  aloft  before  my  eyes 
that  matchless  spectacle, 

“  New,  and  yet  as  old 

As  the  foundations  of  the  heavens  and  earth,” 

an  elaborate  and  pompous  sunset  hanging  over  th* 
©ountains  of  North  Wales.  The  clouds  passed  slowly 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


377 


Jhrough  several  arrangements,  and  in  the  last  of  these  1 
read  the  very  scene  which  six  months  before  I  had  read 
in  a  most  exquisite  poem  of  Wordsworth’s,  extracted 
entire  into  a  London  newspaper  (I  think  the  “  St 
James’s  Chronicle.”)  It  was  a  Canadian  lake,  — 

“  With  all  its  fairy  crowds 
Of  islands  that  together  lie 
As  quietly  as  spots  of  sky 

Amongst  the  evening  clouds.” 

The  scene  in  the  poem  (“  Ruth  ”)  that  been  originally 
mimicked  by  the  poet  from  the  sky,  was  here  re-mim¬ 
icked  and  rehearsed  to  the  life,  as  it  seemed,  by  the  sky 
from  the  poet.  Was  I  then,  in  July,  1802,  really  quot¬ 
ing  from  Wordsworth  ?  Yes,  reader  ;  and  I  only  in  all 
Europe.  In  1799,  I  had  become  acquainted  with  “  We 
are  Seven”  at  Bath.  In  the  winter  of  1801-2,  I  had 
read  the  whole  of  “  Ruth;”  early  in  1803,  I  had  writ* 
ten  to  Wordsworth.  In  May  of  1803,  I  had  received  a 
very  long  answer  from  Wordsworth. 

The  next  morning  after  reaching  Chester,  my  first 
thought  on  rising  was  directed  to  the  vexatious  letter  in 
my  custody.  The  odious  responsibility,  thrust  upon  me 
in  connection  with  this  letter,  was  now  becoming  every 
hour  more  irritating,  because  every  hour  more  embar¬ 
rassing  to  the  freedom  of  my  own  movements,  since  it 
must  by  this  time  have  drawn  the  post-office  into  the 
-anks  of  my  pursuers.  Indignant  I  was  that  this  letter 
should  have  the  power  of  making  myself  an  accomplice 
m  causing  anxiety,  perhaps  even  calamity,  to  the  poor 
emigrant  —  a  man  doubly  liable  to  unjust  suspicion ; 
6rst,  as  by  his  profession  presumably  poor :  and,  sec- 
fodly,  aa  an  alien.  Indignant  I  was  that  this  most  filthy 


578 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


of  letters  should  also  have  the  power  of  forcing  me  ini 
all  sorts  of  indirect  and  cowardly  movements  at  inns 
for  beyond  all  things  it  seemed  to  me  important  that  i 
rhould  not  be  arrested,  or  even  for  a  moment  dial* 
lenged,  as  the  wrongful  holder  of  an  important  letter, 
before  I  had  testified,  by  my  own  spontaneous  transfer 
of  it,  that  I  had  not  dallied  with  any  idea  of  converting 
it  to  my  own  benefit.  In  some  way  I  must  contrive  to 
restore  the  letter.  But  was  it  not  then  the  simplest  of 
all  courses,  to  take  my  hat  before  sitting  down  to  break 
fast,  present  myself  at  the  post-office,  tender  my  explan¬ 
ation,  and  then  (like  Christian  in  Bunyan’s  allegory)  to 
lay  down  my  soul-wearying  burden  at  the  feet  of  those 
who  could  sign  my  certificate  of  absolution  ?  Was  not 
that  simple?  Was  not  that  easy?  Oh  yes,  beyond  a 
doubt.  And  if  a  favorite  fawn  should  be  carried  off  by 
a  lion,  would  it  not  be  a  very  simple  and  easy  course  to 
walk  after  the  robber,  follow  him  iuto  his  den,  and  rea¬ 
son  with  the  wretch  on  the  indelicacy  of  his  conduct? 
In  my  particular  circumstances,  the  post-office  was  in 
relation  to  myself  simply  a  lion’s  den.  Two  separate 
parties,  I  felt  satisfied,  must  by  this  time  be  in  chase  of 
me ;  and  the  two  chasers  would  be  confluent  at  the 
post-office.  Beyond  all  other  objects  which  I  had  to 
keep  in  view,  paramount  was  that  of  fencing  against 
ey  own  re-capture.  Anxious  I  was  on  behalf  of  the 
poor  foreigner;  but  it  did  not  strike  me  that  to  this 
anxiety  I  was  bound  to  sacrifice  myself.  Now,  if  I 
went  to  the  post-office,  I  felt  sure  that  nothing  else 
would  be  the  result ;  and  afterwards  it  turned  out  that 
A  this  anticipation  I  had  been  right.  For  it  struck  m« 
'hat  the  nature  of  the  inclosure  in  the  French  letter  — 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER.  378 

riz.,  the  fact  that  without  a  forgery  it  was  not  negotia¬ 
ble  —  could  not  be  known  certainly  to  anybody  but  my¬ 
self.  Doubts  upon  that  point  must  have  quickened  the 
anxieties  of  all  connected  with  myself,  or  connected 
with  the  case.  More  urgent  consequently  would  have 
been  the  applications  of  “  Monsieur  Monsieur  ”  to  the 
post-office ;  and  consequently  of  the  post-office  to  the 
Priory ;  and  consequently  more  easily  suggested  and 
concerted  between  the  post-office  and  the  Priory  would 
be  all  the  arrangements  for  stopping  me,  in  the  event  of 
my  taking  the  route  of  Chester  —  in  which  case  it  was 
natural  to  suppose  that  I  might  personally  return  the 
letter  to  the  official  authorities.  Of  course  none  of  these 
measures  was  certainly  known  to  myself;  but  I  guessed 
at  them  as  reasonable  probabilities;  and  it  was  evident 
that  the  fifty  and  odd  hours  since  my  elopement  from 
Manchester  had  allowed  ample  time  for  concerting  all 
the  requisite  preparations.  As  a  last  resource,  in  de¬ 
fault  of  any  better  occurring,  it  is  likely  enough  that  my 
anxiety  would  have  tempted  me  into  this  mode  of  sur¬ 
rendering  my  abominable  trust,  which  by  this  time  I  re¬ 
garded  with  such  eyes  of  burning  malice  as  Sinbad 
must  have  directed  at  intervals  towards  the  venerable 
-uffian  that  sat  astride  upon  his  shoulders.  But  things 
had  not  yet  come  to  Sinbad’s  state  of  desperation  ;  so 
immediately  after  breakfast  I  took  my  hat,  determining 
to  review  the  case  and  adopt  some  final  decision  ia.  the 
open  air.  For  I  have  always  found  it  easier  to  think 
ever  a  matter  of  perplexity  wnilst  walking  in  wide  open 
spaces  under  the  broad  eye  of  the  natural  heavens,  than 
whilst  shut  up  in  a  room.  But  at  the  very  door  of  the 
un  I  was  suddenly  brought  to  a  pause  by  the  recolle© 


$80 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


hon  that  some  of  the  servants  from  the  Priory  were 
sure  on  every  forenoon  to  be  at  times  in  the  streets. 
The  streets,  however,  could  be  evaded  by  shaping  a 
course  along  the  city  walls ;  which  I  did,  and  descended 
into  some  obscure  lane  that  brought  me  gradually  to  the 
banks  of  the  river  Dee.  In  the  infancy  of  its  course 
amongst  the  Denbighshire  mountains,  this  river  (famous 
in  our  pre-Norman  history  for  the  earliest  parade  *  of 
English  monarchy)  is  wild  and  picturesque ;  and  even 
below  my  mother’s  Priory  wears  a  character  of  interest. 
But,  a  mile  or  so  nearer  to  its  mouth,  when  leaving 
Chester  for  Parkgate,  it  becomes  miserably  tame  ;  and 
the  several  reaches  of  the  river  take  the  appearance  of 
formal  canals.  On  the  right  bank  f  of  the  river  runs  an 
artificial  mound,  called  the  Cop.  It  was,  I  believe,  orig¬ 
inally  a  Danish  work  ;  and  certainly  its  name  is  Danish 
( i .  e.,  Icelandic,  or  old  Danish),  and  the  same  from 
which  is  derived  our  architectural  word  coping.  Upon 


*  “  Earliest  parade :  ”  —  It  was  a  very  scenical  parade,  for  some¬ 
where  along  this  reach  of  the  Dee  —  viz.,  immediately  below  St. 
John’s  Priory  —  Edgar,  the  first  sovereign  of  all  England,  was  rowed 
by  nine  vassal  reguli. 

f  “  Right  bank :  ”  —  But  which  bank  is  right,  and  which  left,  under 
circumstances  of  position  varying  by  possibility  without  end?  This  is 
n  reasonable  demur;  but  yet  it  argues  an  inexperienced  reader.  Fot 
always  the  position  of  the  spectator  is  conventionally  fixed.  In  mili- 
‘ary  tactics,  in  philosophic  geography,  in  history,  &c.,  the  uniform  as* 
sumption  is,  that  you  are  standing  with  your  back  to  the  source  of  the 
river,  and  your  eyes  travelling  along  with  its  current.  That  bank  of 
the  river  which  under  these  circumstances  lies  upon  your  right,  is  the 
right  bank  absolutely ,  and  not  relatively  only  (as  would  be  the  case  if 
*  room,  and  not  a  river,  were  concerned).  Hence  it  follows  that  the 
Middlesex  side  of  the  Thames  is  always  the  left  bank,  and  the  Surrey 
lide  always  the  right  bank,  no  matter  whether  you  are  moving  fron 
Umdon  to  Oxford,  or  reversely  from  Oxford  to  London. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


381 


tins  bank  I  was  walking,  and  throwing  my  gaze  along 
the  formal  vista  presented  by  the  river.  Some  trifle  of 
anxiety  might  mingle  with  this  gaze  at  the  first,  lest 
perhaps  Philistines  might  be  abroad  ;  for  it  was  just 
possible  that  I  had  been  watched.  But  I  have  gen¬ 
erally  found  that,  if  you  are  in  quest  of  some  certain  es-» 
cape  from  Philistines  of  whatsoever  class  —  sheriff-offi¬ 
cers,  bores,  no  matter  what-— the  surest  refuge  is  to  bo 
found  amongst  hedgerows  and  fields;  amongst  cows 
and  sheep  :  in  fact,  cows  are  amongst  the  gentlest  cf 
breathing  creatures ;  none  show  more  passionate  tender¬ 
ness  to  their  young,  when  deprived  of  them ;  and,  in 
short,  I  am  not  ashamed  to  profess  a  deep  love  for  these 
quiet  creatures.  On  the  present  occasion,  there  were 
many  cows  grazing  in  the  fields  below  the  Cop  :  but  all 
along  the  Cop  itself,  I  could  descry  no  person  whatever 
answering  to  the  idea  of  a  Philistine :  in  fact,  there  was 
nobody  at  all,  except  one  woman,  apparently  middle- 
aged  (meaning  by  that  from  thirty -five  to  forty-five), 
neatly  dressed,  though  perhaps  in  rustic  fashion,  and  by 
no  possibility  belonging  to  any  class  of  my  enemies  ; 
for  already  I  was  near  enough  to  see  so  much.  This 
woman  might  be  a  quarter-of-a-mile  distant ;  and  was 
Bteadily  advancing  towards  me  —  face  to  face.  Soon, 
therefore,  I  was  beginning  to  read  the  character  of  her 
features  pretty  distinctly  ;  and  her  countenance  natu¬ 
rally  served  as  a  mirror  to  echo  and  reverberate  my  own 
feelings,  consequently  my  own  horror  (horror  without 
exaggeration  it  was),  at  a  sudden  uproar  of  tumultuous 
sounds  rising  clamorously  ahead.  Ahead  I  mean  in  re¬ 
lation  to  myself,  but  to  her  the  sound  was  from  the  rear 
Our  situation  was  briefly  this.  Nearly  half-a-mile  be 


B82 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


hind  tlio  station  of  the  woman,  that  reach  of  the  rivet 
along  which  we  two  were  moving  came  to  an  abrupt 
close  ;  so  that  the  next  reach,  making  nearly  a  right- 
angled  turn,  lay  entirely  out  of  view.  From  this  un 
seen  reach  it  was  that  the  angry  clamor,  so  passionate 
and  so  mysterious,  arose  :  and  I,  for  my  part,  having 
never  heard  such  a  tierce  battling  outcry,  nor  even  heard 
of  such  a  cry,  either  in  books  or  on  the  stage,  in  prose 
or  verse,  could  not  so  much  as  whisper  a  guess  to  my¬ 
self  upon  its  probable  cause.  Only  this  I  felt,  that 
blind,  unorganized  nature  it  must  be  —  and  nothing  in 
human  or  in  brutal  wrath  —  that  could  utter  itself  by 
such  an  anarchy  of  sea-like  uproars.  What  was  it  ? 
Where  was  it  ?  Whence  was  it  ?  Earthquake  was  it  ? 
convulsion  of  the  steadfast  earth  ?  or  was  it  the  break¬ 
ing  loose  from  ancient  chains  of  some  deep  morass  like 
that  of  Solway  ?  More  probable  it  seemed,  that  the 
av£)  TroTa/jLwv  of  Euripides  (the  flowing  backwards  of 
rivers  to  their  fountains)  now,  at  last,  after  ages  of  ex¬ 
pectation,  had  been  suddenly  realized.  lSrot  long  I 
needed  to  speculate  ;  for  within  lialf-a-minute,  perhaps, 
from  the  first  arrest  of  our  attention,  the  proximate 
cause  of  this  mystery  declared  itself  to  our  eyes,  al¬ 
though  the  remote  cause  (the  hidden  cause  of  that  visible 
cause)  was  still  as  dark  as  before.  Round  that  right- 
angled  turn  which  I  have  mentioned  as  wheeling  into 
the  next  succeeding  reach  of  the  river,  suddenly  as  with 
the  trampling  of  cavalry  —  but  all  dressing  accurately — • 
and  the  water  at  the  outer  angle  sweeping  so  much 
faster  than  that  at  the  inner  angle,  as  to  keep  the  front 
of  advance  rigorously  in  line,  violently  careered  round 
Hto  our  own  placid  watery  vista  a  huge  charging  blocli 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


383 


of  waters,  filling  tlie  whole  channel  of  the  river,  and 
coming  down  upon  us  at  the  rate  of  forty  miles  an  hour. 
Well  was  it  for  us,  myself  and  that  respectable  rustic 
woman,  us  the  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha  of  this  perilous 
moment,  sole  survivors  apparently  of  the  deluge  (since 
by  accident  there  was  at  that  particular  moment  on  that 
particular  Cop  nothing  else  to  survive),  that  by  means 
of  this  Cop,  and  of  ancient  Danish  hands  (possibly  not 
yet  paid  for  their  work),  we  could  survive.  In  fact,  this 
watery  breastwork,  a  perpendicular  wall  of  water  carry¬ 
ing  itself  as  true  as  if  controlled  by  a  mason’s  plumb- 
line,  rode  forward  at  such  a  pace,  that  obviously  the 
'  .'eetest  horse  or  dromedary  would  have  had  no  chance 
>f  escape.  Many  a  decent  railway  even,  among  rail¬ 
ways  since  born  its  rivals,  would  not  have  had  above  the 
.bird  of  a  chance.  Naturally,  I  had  too  short  a  time  for 
observing  much  or  accurately  ;  and  universally  I  am  a 
poor  hand  at  observing ;  else  I  should  say,  that  this 
riding  block  of  crystal  waters  did  not  gallop,  but  went  at 
a  long  trot ;  yes,  long  trot  - —  that  most  frightful  of  paces 
in  a  tiger,  in  a  buffalo,  or  in  a  rebellion  of  waters. 
Even  a  ghost,  I  feel  convinced,  would  appall  me  more  if 
coming  up  at  a  long  diabolical  trot,  than  at  a  canter  or 
gallop.  The  first  impulse  to  both  of  us  was  derived 
from  cowardice ;  cowardice  the  most  abject  and  selfish. 
Such  is  man,  though  a  Deucalion  elect ;  such  is  woman, 
though  a  decent  Pyrrha.  Both  of  us  ran  like  hares  ; 
neither  did  I,  Deucalion,  think  of  poor  Pyrrha  at  all  for 
the  first  sixty  seconds.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand  why 
ihould  I?  It  struck  me  seriouslv  -hat  St.  George’s 
Channel  (and  if  so,  bevond  a  doubt,  the  Atlantic  Ocean) 
had  broke  loose,  and  was,  doubtless,  playing  the  same 


384 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


insufferable  gambols  upon  all  rivers  along  a  seaboard  of 
six  to  seven  thousand  miles ;  in  which  case,  as  all  the 
race  of  woman  must  be  doomed,  how  romantic  a  specula¬ 
tion  it  was  for  me,  sole  relic  of  literature,  to  think  speci¬ 
ally  of  one  poor  Pyrrha,  probably  very  illiterate,  whom 
I  had  never  yet  spoken  to.  That  idea  pulled  me  up. 
Not  spoken  to  her  ?  Then  I  would  speak  to  her  ;  and 
the  more  so,  because  the  sound  of  the  pursuing  river 
told  me  that  flight  was  useless.  And,  besides,  if  any 
reporter  or  sub-editor  of  some  Chester  chronicle  should, 
at  this  moment,  with  his  glass  be  sweeping  the  Cop,  and 
discover  me  flying  under  these  unchivalrous  circum 
stances,  he  might  gibbet  me  to  all  eternity.  Halting, 
therefore  (and  really  I  had  not  run  above  eighty  or  a 
hundred  steps),  I  waited  for  my  solitary  co-tenant  of  the 
Cop.  She  was  a  little  blown  by  running,  and  could  not 
easily  speak ;  besides  which,  at  the  very  moment  of  her 
coming  up,  the  preternatural  column  of  waters,  running 
in  the  very  opposite  direction  to  the  natural  current  ol 
the  river,  came  up  with  us,  ran  by  with  the  ferocious  up¬ 
roar  of  a  hurricane,  sent  up  the  sides  of  the  Cop  a  sa¬ 
lute  of  waters,  as  if  hypocritically  pretending  to  kiss 
our  feet,  but  secretly  understood  by  all  parties  as  a  vain 
treachery  for  pulling  us  down  into  the  flying  deluge  ; 
whilst  all  along  both  banks  the  mighty  refluent  wash 
was  heard  as  it  rode  along,  leaving  memorials,  by  sight 
and  by  sound,  of  its  victorious  power.  But  my  female 
associate  in  this  terrific  drama,  what  said  she,  on  coming 
up  with  me  ?  Or  what  said  I  ?  For,  by  accident,  I  it 
was  that  spoke  first;  notwithstanding  the  fact,  notorious 
*nd  undeniable,  that  I  had  never  been  introduced  to  her 
H©re,  however,  be  it  understood,  as  a  case  now  solemnly 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


385 


jdjudicated  and  set  at  rest,  that  in  the  midst  of  any 
great  natural  convulsion  —  earthquake,  suppose,  water¬ 
spout,  tornado,  or  eruption  of  Vesuvius — it  shall  and 
may  be  lawful  in  all  time  coming  (any  usage  or  tradi¬ 
tion  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding),  for  two  English 
people  to  communicate  with  each  other,  although,  by 
affidavit  made  before  two  justices  of  the  peace,  it  shall 
have  been  proved  that  no  previous  introduction  had 
been  possible  ;  in  all  other  cases  the  old  statute  of  ncn- 
intercourse  holds  good.  Meantime,  the  present  case,  in 
default  of  more  circumstantial  evidence,  might  be  re¬ 
garded,  if  not  as  an  earthquake,  yet  as  ranking  amongst 
the  first  fruits  or  blossoms  of  an  earthquake.  So  I 
spoke  without  scruple.  All  my  freezing  English  re¬ 
serve  gave  way  under  this  boiling  sense  of  having  been 
so  recently  running  for  life  :  and  then  again,  suppose 
the  water  column  should  come  back  —  riding  along  with 
the  current,  and  no  longer  riding  against  it  —  in  that 
case,  we  and  all  the  country  Palatine  might  soon  have 
to  run  for  our  lives.  Under  such  threaten ings  of  com¬ 
mon  peril,  surely  the  7rappr]<jia,  or  unlimited  license  of 
speech,  ought  spontaneously  to  proclaim  itself  without 
waiting  for  sanction. 

So  I  asked  her  the  meaning  of  this  horrible  tumult  in 
the  waters  ;  how  did  she  read  the  mystery  ?  Her  an¬ 
swer  was,  that  though  she  had  never  before  seen  such  a 
(hing,  yet  from  her  grandmother  she  had  often  heard  of 
it ;  and,  if  she  had  run  before  it,  that  was  because  I  ran  ; 
and  a  little,  perhaps,  because  the  noise  frightened  her. 
What  was  it,  then  ?  I  asked.  “  It  was,”  she  said,  “  th© 
Bore  ;  and  it  was  an  affection  to  which  only  some  few 
STers  here  and  there  were  liable  ;  and  the  Dee  was  oua 

25 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


586 

of  these.”  So  ignorant  was  I,  that,  until  that  no  ment,  1 
had  never  heard  of  such  a  nervous  affection  in  rivers 
Subsequently  I  found  that,  amongst  English  rivers,  the 
neighboring  river  Severn,  a  far  more  important  stream, 
luftered  at  spring  tides  the  same  kind  of  hysterics,  and, 
perhaps,  some  few  other  rivers  in  this  British  island  ;  but 
amongst  Indian  rivers,  only  the  Ganges. 

At  last,  when  the  Bore  had  been  discussed  to  the  full 
extent  of  our  united  ignorance,  I  went  off  to  the  subject 
of  that  other  curse,  far  more  afflicting  than  any  conceiva¬ 
ble  bore  —  viz.,  the  foreign  letter  in  my  pocket.  The 
Bore  had  certainly  alarmed  us  for  ninety  or  a  hundred 
seconds,  but  the  letter  would  poison  my  very  existence, 
like  the  bottle-imp,  until  I  could  transfer  it  to  some  per¬ 
son  truly  qualified  to  receive  it.  Might  not  my  fair  friend 
on  the  Cop  be  marked  out  by  Fate  as  “the  coming 
woman  ”  born  to  deliver  me  from  this  pocket  curse?  It 
is  true  that  she  displayed  a  rustic  simplicity  somewhat 
resembling  that  of  Audrey  in  “  As  you  like  it.”  Her , 
in  fact,  not  at  all  more  than  Audrey,  had  the  gods  been 
pleased  to  make  “poetical.”  But,  for  my  particulai 
mission,  that  might  be  amongst  her  best  qualifications. 
At  any  rate,  I  was  wearied  in  spirit  under  my  load  of  re¬ 
sponsibility  ;  personally  to  liberate  myself  by  visiting 
the  post-office,  too  surely  I  felt  as  the  ruin  of  my  enter¬ 
prise  in  its  very  outset.  Some  agent  must  be  employed  ; 
and  where  could  one  be  found  promising  by  looks,  words, 
manners,  more  trustworthiness  than  this  agent,  sent  by 
accident  ?  The  case  almost  explained  itself.  She 
readily  understood  how  the  resemblance  of  a  name  had 
thrown  the  letter  into  my  possession  ;  and  that  th* 
rmple  remedy  was  —  to  i3store  it  to  the  right  owne* 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


387 


through  the  right  channel,  which  channel  was  the  never- 
gnough-to-be-es teemed  General  Post-office,  at  that  time 
pitching  its  tents  and  bivouacking  nightly  in  Lombard 
Street,  but  for  this  special  case  legally  represented  by 
the  Chester  head-office ,  a  service  of  no  risk  to  her ,  for 
which,  on  the  contrary,  all  parties  would  thank  her.  I, 
to  begin,  begged  to  put  my  thanks  into  the  shape  of  half- 
a-crown  ;  but,  as  some  natural  doubts  arose  with  respect 
to  her  precise  station  in  life  (for  she  might  be  a  farmer’s 
wife,  and  not  a  servant),  I  thought  it  advisable  to  postu¬ 
late  the  existence  of  some  youthful  daughter  ;  to  which 
mythological  person  I  begged  to  addres  my  offering, 
when  incarnated  in  the  shape  of  a  doll. 

I  therefore,  Deucalion  that  was  or  had  been  provis¬ 
ionally  through  a  brief  interval  of  panic,  took  leave  of 
my  Pyrrha,  sole  partner  in  the  perils  and  anxieties  ol 
that  astounding  Bore,  dismissing  her  —  Thessalian 
Pyrrha  —  not  to  any  Thessalian  vales  of  Tempe,  but  — ■ 
O  ye  powers  of  moral  anachronism !  to  the  Chester 
Post-office  ;  and  warning  her  on  no  account  to  be  pre¬ 
maturely  wheedled  out  of  her  secret.  Her  position, 
diplomatically  speaking,  was  better  (as  I  made  her  un¬ 
derstand)  than  that  of  the  post-office  ;  she  having  some¬ 
thing  in  her  gift  — viz.,  an  appointment  to  forty  guineas  ; 
whereas  in  the  counter-gift  of  the  proud  post-office  was 
nothing;  neither  for  instant  fruition  nor  in  far  off  rever¬ 
sion.  Her,  in  fact,  one  might  regard  as  a  Pandora, 
carrying  a  box  with  something  better  than  hope  at  th© 
bottom  ;  for  hope  too  often  betrays,  but  a  draft  upon 
Smith,  Payne,  &  Smith,  which  never  betrays,  and  for  a 
sum  which,  on  the  authority  of  Goldsmith,  makes  a» 
Knglisb  clergyman  “  passing  rich  ”  through  a  whola 


388 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


twelvemonth,  entitled  her  to  look  scornfully  upon  ererj 
second  person  that  she  met. 

In  about  two  hours  the  partner  of  my  solitary  king¬ 
dom  upon  the  Cop  reappeared,  with  the  welcome  assur¬ 
ance  that  Chester  had  survived  the  Bore,  that  all  was 
right,  and  that  anything  which  ever  had  been  looking 
crooked  was  now  made  straight  as  the  path  of  an  arrow. 
She  had  given  “  my  love  ”  (so  she  said)  to  the  post-office  5 
had  been  thanked  by  more  than  either  one  or  two 
amongst  the  men  of  letters  who  figured  in  the  equipage 
of  that  establishment ;  and  had  been  assured  that,  long 
before  daylight  departed,  one  large  cornucopia  of  justice 
and  felicity  would  be  emptied  out  upon  the  heads  of  all 
parties  in  the  drama.  I  myself,  not  the  least  afflicted 
person  on  the  roll,  was  already  released  —  suddenly  re¬ 
leased,  and  fully — from  the  iniquitous  load  of  responsi¬ 
bility  thrust  upon  me  ;  the  poor  emigrant  was  released 
from  his  conflict  with  fears  that  were  uncertain,  and 
creditors  too  certain ;  the  post-office  was  released  from 
the  scandal  and  embarrassment  of  a  gross  irregularity, 
that  might  eventually  have  brought  the  postmaster-gen¬ 
eral  down  upon  their  haunches  ;  and  the  household  at 
the  Priory  were  released  from  all  anxieties,  great  and 
small,  sound  and  visionary,  on  the  question  of  my  fancied 
felony. 

In  those  anxieties,  one  person  there  was  that  never 
had  condescended  to  participate.  This  was  my  eldest 
lister,  Mary  — just  eleven  months  senior  to  myself. 
She  was  among  the  gentlest  of  girls,  and  yet  from  the 
rery  first  she  had  testified*  the  most  incredulous  disdain 
sf  all  who  fancied  her  brother  capable  of  any  thought  sc 
fc&>:e  as  that  of  meditating  a  wrong  t>3  a  needy  exile.  A 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER, 


389 


present,  after  exchanging  a  few  parting  words,  and  a 
few  final  or  farewell  farewells  with  my  faithful  female  * 
agent,  further  business  I  had  none  to  detain  me  in 
Chester,  except  what  concerned  this  particular  sister. 
My  business  with  her  was  not  to  thank  her  for  the  rego- 
lute  justice  which  she  had  done  me,  since  as  yet  I  could 
not  know  of  that  service,  but  simply  to  see  her,  to  learn 
the  domestic  news  of  the  Priory,  and,  according  to  tho 
possibilities  of  the  case,  to  concert  with  her  some  plan 
of  regular  correspondence.  Meantime  it  happened  that 
a  maternal  uncle,  a  military  man  on  the  Bengal  estab¬ 
lishment,  who  had  come  to  England  on  a  three  years’ 
leave  of  absence  (according  to  the  custom  in  those  days), 
was  at  this  time  a  visitor  at  the  Priory.  My  mother’s 
establishment  of  servants  was  usually  limited  to  five 
persons  —  all,  except  one,  elderly  and  torpid,  But  my 
uncle,  who  had  brought  to  England  some  beautiful  Arab 
and  Persian  horses,  found  it  necessary  to  gather  about 
his  stables  an  extra  body  of  men  and  boys.  These  were 
all  alert  and  active  ;  so  that,  when  I  reconnoitred  the 
windows  of  the  Priory  in  the  dusk,  hoping  in  some  way 
to  attract  my  sister’s  attention,  I  not  only  failed  in  that 
object,  seeing  no  lights  in  any  room  which  could  natu¬ 
rally  have  been  occupied  by  her,  but  I  also  found  myself 
growing  into  an  object  of  special  attention  to  certain  un¬ 
known  servants,  who,  having  no  doubt  received  instruc- 

e  Some  people  are  irritated,  or  even  fancy  themselves  insulted,  by 
ivert  acts  of  alliteration,  as  many  people  are  by  puns.  On  their  ac- 
4ount  let  me  say,  that,  although  there  are  here  eight  separate  f’s  in 
•603  i]  in  half  a  sentence,  this,  is  to  be  held  as  pure  accident.  In  fact, 
It  one  time  there  were  nine  f’s  In  the  original  cast  of  the  sentence^ 
*ntil  1  in  pity  of  the  affronted  peoDle  substituted  female  agent  for./# 
Half, 

e 


190 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


Hons  to  look  out  for  me,  easily  inferred  from  my  anxious 
movements  that  I  must  be  the  person  “  wanted.’ 
Uneasy  at  all  the  novel  appearances  of  things,  I  went 
away,  and  returned,  after  an  hour’s  interval,  armed  with 
a  note  to  my  sister,  requesting  her  to  watch  for  an  op¬ 
portunity  of  coming  out  for  a  few  minutes  under  the 
shadows  of  the  little  ruins  in  the  Priory  garden,*  where 


0  “  The  little  ruins  in  the  Priory  garden  :  ”  —  St.  John’s  Priory  had 
been  part  of  the  monastic  foundation  attached  to  the  very  ancient 
church  of  St.  John,  standing  beyond  the  walls  of  Chester.  Early  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  this  Priory,  or  so  much  of  it  as  re¬ 
mained,  was  occupied  as  a  dwelling-house  by  Sir  Robert  Cotton  the 
antiquary.  And  there,  according  to  tradition,  he  had  been  visited  by 
Ben  Jonson.  All  that  remained  of  the  Priory  when  used  as  a  domestic 
residence  by  Cotton  was  upon  a  miniature  scale,  except  only  tb 3 
kitchen  —  a  noble  room,  with  a  groined  roof  of  stone,  exactly  as  it  had 
been  fitted  to  the  uses  of  the  monastic  establishment.  The  little  hall 
of  entrance,  the  dining-room,  and  principal  bedroom,  were  in  a  mod¬ 
est  style  of  elegance,  fitted  by  the  scale  of  accommodation  for  the 
abode  of  a  literary  bachelor,  and  pretty  nearly  as  Cotton  had  left  them 
two  centuries  before.  But  the  miniature  character  of  the  Priory,  which 
had  dwindled  by  sueccessive  abridgments  from  a  royal  quarto  into  a 
pretty  duodecimo,  was  seen  chiefly  in  the  beautiful  ruins  which 
adorned  the  little  lawn,  across  which  access  was  gained  to  the  house 
through  the  hall.  These  ruins  amounted  at  the  most  to  three  arches 
—  which,  because  round  and  not  pointed,  were  then  usually  called 
Saxon,  as  contradistinguished  from  Gothic.  What  might  be  the  exact 
classification  of  the  architecture  I  do  not  know.  Certainly  the  very 
ancient  church  of  St.  John,  to  which  at  one  time  the  Priory  must  have 
been  an  appendage,  wore  a  character  of  harsh  and  naked  simplicity 
Jiat  was  repulsive.  But  the  little  ruins  were  really  beautiful,  and 
Vew  continual  visits  from  artists  and  sketchers  through  every  succes¬ 
sive  summer.  Whether  they  had  any  architectural  enrichments,  I  d<v 
*ot  remember.  But  they  interested  all  people  —  first  by  their  minia¬ 
ture  scale,  which  would  have  qualified  them  (if  portable)  for  a  direc* 
introduction  amongst  the  “  properties”  and  Dramatis  personae  on  ©u7 
Lsndon  opera  boards  ;  and,  secondly,  by  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the 
jambs,  wild  flowers,  and  ferns,  that  surmounted  the  arches  wdh  uato 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


391 


I  meantime  would-  be  waiting.  This  note  I  gave  to  a 
Itranger,  whose  costume  showed  him  to  be  a  groom, 
begging  him  to  give  it  to  the  young  lady  whose  address 
it  bore.  He  answered,  in  a  resjDectful  tone,  that  he 
would  do  so  ;  but  he  could  not  sincerely  have  meant  it, 
since  (as  I  soon  learned)  it  was  impossible.  In  fact,  not 
one  minute  had  I  waited,  when  in  glided  amongst  the 
ruins  —  not  my  fair  sister,  but  my  bronzed  Bengal  uncle  ! 
A  Bengal  tiger  would  not  more  have  startled  me.  Now, 
to  a  dead  certainty,  I  said,  here  comes  a  fatal  barrier  to 
the  prosecution  of  my  scheme.  I  was  mistaken.  Be¬ 
tween  my  mother  and  my  uncle  there  existed  the  very 
deepest  affection  ;  for  they  regarded  each  other  as  sole 
relics  of  a  household  once  living  together  in  memora- 
ble  harmony.  But  in  many  features  of  character  no 
human  beings  could  stand  off  from  each  other  in  more 
lively  repulsion.  And  this  was  seen  on  the  present  oc¬ 
casion.  My  dear  excellent  mother,  from  the  eter¬ 
nal  quiet  of  her  decorous  household,  looked  upon  every 
violent  or  irregular  movement,  and  therefore  upon  mine 
at  present,  much  as  she  would  have  done  upon  the 
opening  of  the  seventh  seal  in  the  Revelations.  But  my 
uncle  was  thoroughly  a  man  of  the  world,  and  what  told 
even  more  powerfully  on  my  behalf  in  this  instance,  ho 

v  i[  coronets  of  the  richest  composition.  *n  this  condition  of  attractive- 
ness  my  mother  saw  this  little  Priory,  which  was  then  on  sale.  As  a 
residence,  it  had  the  great  advantage  of  standing  somewhat  aloof  from 
She  city  of  Chester, which  however  (like  all  cathedral  cities),  was  quiet 
»nd  respectable  in  the  composition  of  its  population.  My  mother 
tought  it,  added  a  drawing-room,  eight  or  nine  bedrooms,  dressing- 
eoras,  etc.,  all  on  the  miniature  scale  corresponding  to  the  original 
’Ian  :  and  thus  formed  a  very  orettv  residence,  with  the  grace  ot 
Honastic  antiquity  hanging  over  the  whole  little  retreat. 


392 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


was  a  man  of  even  morbid  activity.  It  was  so  exquisite); 
natural  in  his  eyes  that  any  rational  person  should  pre-» 
fer  moving  about  amongst  the  breezy  mountains  o: 
Wales,  to  a  slavish  routine  of  study  amongst  books  grim 
with  dust,  and  masters  too  probably  still  more  dusty, 
that  he  seemed  disposed  to  regard  my  conduct  as  an  ex¬ 
traordinary  act  of  virtue.  On  his  advice,  it  was  decided 
that  there  could  be  no  hope  in  any  contest  with  my 
main  wishes,  and  that  I  should  be  left  to  pursue  my 
original  purpose  of  walking  amongst  the  Welsh  moun¬ 
tains  ;  provided  I  chose  to  do  so  upon  the  slender  allow¬ 
ance  of  a  guinea  a  week.  My  uncle,  whose  Indian 
munificence  ran  riot  upon  all  occasions,  would  gladly 
have  had  a  far  larger  allowance  made  to  me,  and  would 
himself  have  clandestinely  given  me  anything  I  asked. 
But  I  myself,  from  general  ignorance  (in  which  accom¬ 
plishment  I  excelled),  judged  this  to  be  sufficient ;  and 
at  this  point  my  mother,  hitherto  passively  acquiescent 
in  my  uncle’s  proposals,  interfered  with  a  decisive  rigor 
that  in  my  own  heart  I  could  not  disapprove.  Any 
larger  allowance,  most  reasonably  she  urged,  what  was 
it  but  to  “  make  proclamation  to  my  two  younger  broth¬ 
ers  that  rebellion  bore  a  premium,  and  that  mutiny  was 
the  ready  road  to  ease  and  comfort  ?  ”  My  conscience 
smote  me  at  these  words  :  I  felt  something  like  an  elec- 
trie  shock  on  this  sudden  reference,  so  utterly  unex¬ 
pected,  to  my  brothers  ;  for,  to  say  the  truth,  I  had 
never  once  admitted  them  to  my  thoughts  in  forecasting 
the  eventual  consequences  that  might  possibly  unrol’ 
themselves  from  my  own  headstrong  act  Here  new 
within  three  davs,  rang  like  a  solemn  knell,  reverberak 
ing  from  the  sounding-board  within  my  awakened  con 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


393 


ucience,  one  of  those  many  self-reproaches  so  dimly 
masked,  but  not  circumstantially  prefigured,  by  the  se¬ 
cret  thought  under  the  dome  of  St.  Paul’s  Cathedral 
about  its  dread  Whispering  Gallery.  In  this  particular 
instance,  I  know  that  the  evil  consequences  from  my 
own  .example  never  lid  take  effect.  But  at  the  moment 
of  my  mother’s  sorrowful  suggestion,  the  fear  that  they 
might  take  effect  thrilled  me  with  remorse.  My  next 
brother,  a  boy  of  generous  and  heroic  temper,  was  at  a 
school  governed  by  a  brutal  and  savage  master.  This 
brother,  I  well  know,  had  justifying  reasons,  ten  times 
weightier  than  any  which  I  could  plead,  for  copying  my 
precedent.  Most  probable  it  was  that  he  would  do  so ; 
but  I  learned  many  years  subsequently  from  himself  that 
in  fact  he  did  not.  The  man’s  diabolical  malice  at  last 
made  further  toleration  impossible.  Without  thinking 
of  my  example,  under  very  different  circumstances  my 
brother  won  his  own  emancipation  in  ways  suggested  by 
his  own  views  and  limited  by  his  own  resources ;  he  got 
afloat  upon  the  wide,  wide  world  of  ocean  ;  ran  along  a 
perilous  seven^ears’  career  of  nautical  romance  ;  had 
his  name  almost  blotted  out  from  all  memories  in  Eng¬ 
land  ;  became  of  necessity  a  pirate  amongst  pirates ;  was 
liable  to  the  death  of  a  pirate  wherever  taken ;  then 
suddenly,  on  a  morning  of  battle,  having  effected  his 
scape  from  the  bloody  flag,  he  joined  the  English  storrn- 
.^g  party  at  Monte  Video,  fought  under  the  eye  of  Sir 
Home  Popham,  the  commodore,  and  within  twenty-four 
hours  after  the  victory  wTas  rated  as  a  midshipman  on 
/oard  the  Diadem  (a  64-gun  ship),  which  bore  Sir 
rloine’s  flag.  All  this  I  have  more  circumstantially 
narrated  elsewhere.  I  repeat  the  «um  of  it  here,  a* 


894 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


ihowing  that  his  elopement  from  a  brutal  tyrant  was  not 
due  to  any  misleading  of  mine.  I  happen  to  know  this 
now  —  but  then  I  could  not  know  it.  And  if  I  had  so 
entirely  overlooked  one  such  possible  result,  full  of 
calamity  to  my  youthful  brothers,  why  might  I  not  have 
overlooked  many  hundreds  beside,  equally  probable  — 
equally  full  of  peril  ?  That  consideration  saddened  me, 
and  deepened  more  and  more  the  ominous  suggestion  — 
the  oracle  full  of  woe  —  that  spoke  from  those  Belshazzar 
thunderings  upon  the  wall  of  the  Whispering  Gallery. 
In  fact,  every  intricate  and  untried  path  in  life,  where  it 
was  from  the  first  a  matter  of  arbitrary  choice  to  enter 
upon  it  or  avoid  it,  is  effectually  a  path  through  a  vast 
Hercynian  forest,  unexplored  and  unmapped,  where  each 
several  turn  in  your  advance  leaves  you  open  to  new 
anticipations  of  what  is  next  to  be  expected,  and  conse¬ 
quently  open  to  altered  valuations  of  all  that  has  been 
already  traversed.  Even  the  character  of  your  own  ab¬ 
solute  experience,  past  and  gone,  which  (if  anything  in 
this  world)  you  might  surely  answer  for  as  sealed  and 
settled  forever  —  even  this  you  must  submit  to  hold  in 
suspense,  as  a  thing  conditional  and  contingent  upon  what 
is  yet  to  come  —  liable  to  have  its  provisional  character 
affirmed  or  reversed,  according  to  the  new  combinations 
into  which  it  may  enter  with  elements  only  yet  perhaps 
n  the  earliest  stages  of  development. 

Saddened  by  these  reflections,  I  was  still  more  sad¬ 
dened  by  the  chilling  manner  of  my  mother.  If  I  could 
presume  to  descry  a  fault  in  my  mother,  it  wTas  —  tha3 
she  turned  the  chilling  aspects  of  her  high-toned  char¬ 
acter  too  exclusively  upon  those  whom,  in  any  degree,  sh* 
knew  or  supposed  to  be  promoters  of  evil.  Sometimes* 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


m 


Her  austerity  might  seem  even  unjust.  But  at  present 
the  whole  artillery  of  her  displeasure  seemed  to  be  un 
masked,  and  justly  unmasked,  against  a  moral  aberra¬ 
tion,  that  offered  for  itself  no  excuse  that  was  obvious  in 
one  moment,  that  was  legible  at  one  glance,  that  could 
utter  itself  in  one  word.  My  mother  was  predisposed 
to  think  ill  of  all  causes  that  required  many  words :  I, 
predisposed  to  subtleties  of  all  sorts  and  degrees,  had 
naturally  become  acquainted  with  cases  that  could  not 
unrobe  their  apparellings  down  to  that  degree  of  sim¬ 
plicity.  If  in  this  world  there  is  one  misery  having  no 
relief,  it  is  the  pressure  on  the  heart  from  the  Incom¬ 
municable.  And  if  another  Sphinx  should  arise  to  pro¬ 
pose  another  enigma  to  man  —  saying,  What  burden  is 
that  which  only  is  insupportable  by  human  fortitude  ?  I 
should  answer  at  once  —  It  is  the  burden  of  the  Incom¬ 
municable.  At  this  moment,  sitting  in  the  same  room  of 
the  Priory  with  my  mother,  knowing  how  reasonable 
she  was  —  how  patient  of  explanations  —  how  candid  — 
how  open  to  pity  —  not  the  less  I  sank  away  in  a  hope¬ 
lessness  that  was '  immeasurable  from  all  effort  at  ex¬ 
planation.  She  and  I  were  contemplating  the  very 
same  act ;  but  she  from  one  centre,  I  from  another. 
Certain  I  was,  that  if  through  one  half-minute  she  could 
realize  in  one  deadly  experience  the  suffering  with 
which  I  had  fought  through  more  than  three  months,  the 
amount  of  physical  anguish,  the  desolation  of  all  genial 
life,  she  would  have  uttered  a  rapturous  absolution  of 
that  which  else  must  always  seem  to  her  a  mere  ex¬ 
plosion  of  wilful  insubordination.  “  In  this  brief  ex¬ 
perience,”  she  would  exclaim,  “  I  read  the  record  of 
»our  acquittal  ;  in  this  fiery  torment  I  acknowledge  tba 


596 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


gladiatorial  resistance.”  Such  in  the  case  supposed 
would  have  been  her  revised  verdict.  But  this  case  wag 
exquisitely  impossible.  Nothing  which  offered  itself  10 
my  rhetoric  gave  any  but  the  feeblest  and  most  childish 
reflection  of  my  past  sufferings.  Just  so  helpless  did  I 
feel,  disarmed  into  just  the  same  languishing  impotence 
to  face  (or  make  an  effort  at  facing)  the  difficulty  before 
me,  as  most  of  us  have  felt  in  the  dreams  of  our  child¬ 
hood  when  lying  down  without  a  struggle  before  some 
all-conquering  lion.  I  felt  that  the  situation  was  one 
without  hope  ;  a  solitary  word,  which  I  attempted  to 
mould  upon  my  lips,  died  away  into  a  sigh  ;  and  pas¬ 
sively  I  acquiesced  in  the  apparent  confession  spread 
through  all  the  appearances  —  that  in  reality  I  had  no 
palliation  to  produce. 

One  alternative,  in  the  offer  made  to  me,  was,  that  I 
had  permission  to  stay  at  the  Priory.  The  Priory  or 
the  mountainous  region  of  Wales,  was  offered  freely  to 
my  choice.  Either  of  the  two  offered  an  attractive 
abode.  The  Priory,  it  may  be  fancied,  was  clogged  with 
the  liability  to  fresh  and  intermitting  reproaches.  But 
this  was  not  so.  I  knew  my  mother  sufficiently  to  be 
assured  that,  once  having  expressed  her  sorrowful  con¬ 
demnation  of  my  act,  having  made  it  impossible  for  me 
to  misunderstand  her  views,  she  was  ready  to  extend 
her  wonted  hospitality  to  me,  and  (as  regarded  all  prac¬ 
tical  matters)  her  wonted  kindness ;  but  not  that  sort  of 
kindness  which  could  make  me  forget  that  I  stood  un¬ 
der  the  deepest  shadows  of  her  displeasure,  or  could 
leave  me  for  a  moment  free  to  converse  at  my  ease  upon 
ray  and  every  subject.  A  man  that  is  talking  on  simple 
loleration,  and,  as  it  were,  under  permanent  protest,  cair 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


397 


dot  feel  himself  morally  at  his  ease,  unless  very  obtusa 
and  coarse  in  his  sensibilities. 

Mine  under  any  situation  approaching  to  the  present, 
were  so  far  from  being  obtuse,  that  they  were  morbidly 
and  extravagantly  acute.  I  had  erred  :  that  I  knew, 
and  did  not  disguise  from  myself.  Indeed,  the  rapture 
of  anguish  with  which  I  had  recurred  involuntarily  to 
my  experience  of  the  Whispering  Gallery,  and  the  sym¬ 
bolic  meaning  which  I  had  given  to  that  experience, 
manifested  indirectly  my  deep  sense  of  error  through 
the  dim  misgiving  which  attended  it  —  that  in  some 
mysterious  way  the  sense  and  the  consequences  of  this 
error  would  magnify  themselves  at  every  stage  of  life, 
in  proportion  as  they  were  viewed  retrospectively  from 
greater  and  greater  distances.  I  had,  besides,  through 
the  casual  allusion  to  my  brothers,  suddenly  become 
painfully  aware  of  another  and  separate  failure  in  the 
filial  obligations  resting  on  myself.  Any  mother,  who 
is  a  widow,  has  especial  claims  on  the  cooperation  of 
her  eldest  son  in  all  means  of  giving  a  beneficial  bias 
to  the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  the  younger  children  : 
and,  if  any  mother,  then  by  a  title  how  special  could  my 
own  mother  invoke  such  cooperation,  who  had  on  her 
part  satisfied  all  the  claims  made  upon  her  maternal 
character,  by  self-sacrifices  as  varied  as  privately  I  knew 
them  to  be  exenrplary.  Whilst  yet  comparatively  young, 
not  more  than  thirty-six,  she  had  sternly  refused  all 
countenance,  on  at  least  two  separate  occasions,  to  dis¬ 
tinguished  proposals  of  marriage,  out  of  pure  regard  to 
me  memory  of  my  father,  and  to  the  interests  of  his 
children.  Could  I  fail  to  read,  in  such  unostentatiou* 
txemplificutions  of  maternal  goodness,  a  summons  10  a 


398 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


corresponding  earnestness  on  my  part  in  lightening,  as 
much  as  possible,  the  burden  of  her  responsibilities? 
Alas  !  too  certainly,  as  regarded  that  duty,  I  felt  my 
own  failure  :  one  opportunity  had  been  signally  lost,  and 
yet,  on  the  other  hand,  I  also  felt  that  more  might  be 
pleaded  on  my  behalf  than  could  by  possibility  be  ap¬ 
parent  to  a  neutral  bystander.  But  this,  to  be  pleaded 
effectually,  needed  to  be  said  —  not  by  myself,  but  by  a 
disinterested  advocate  :  and  no  such  advocate  was  at 
hand.  In  blind  distress  of  mind,  conscience-stricken  and 
heart-stricken,  I  stretched  out  my  arms,  seeking  for  my 
one  sole  auxiliary  ;  that  was  my  eldest  sister  Mary  ;  for 
my  younger  sister  Jane  was  a  mere  infant.  Blindly  and 
mechanically,  I  stretched  out  my  arms  as  if  to  arrest  her 
attention  ;  and  giving  utterance  to  my  laboring  thoughts, 
I  was  beginning  to  speak,  when  all  at  once  I  became 
sensible  that  Mary  was  not  there.  I  had  heard  a  step 
behind  me,  and  supposed  it  hers :  since  the  groom’s 
ready  acceptance  of  my  letter  to  her  had  pre-occupied 
me  with  the  belief  that  I  should  see  her  in  a  few  mo¬ 
ments.  But  she  was  far  away,  on  a  mission  of  anxious, 
sisterly  love.  Immediately  after  my  elopement,  an  ex¬ 
press  had  been  sent  off  to  the  Priory  from  Manchester ; 
this  express,  well  mounted,  had  not  spent  more  than  four 
hours  on  the  road.  He  must  have  passed  me  on  my 
first  day’s  walk  ;  and,  within  an  hour  after  his  arrival, 
came  a  communication  from  the  post-office,  explaining 
the  nature  and  value  of  the  letter  that  had  been  so 
vexatiously  thrust  into  my  hands.  Alarm  spread  through 
the  Priory :  for  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  coincidence 
*f  my  elopement  with  this  certified  delivery  of  the  letter 
£>  myself,  gave  but  too  reasonable  grounds  for  connect 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


399 


mg  the  two  incidents.  I  was  grateful  to  dear  Mary  for 
resisting  such  strong  plausibilities  against  me  ;  and  vet 
I  could  not  feel  entitled  to  complain  of  those  who  had 
not  resisted.  The  probability  seemed  that  I  must  have 
violated  the  laws  to  some  extent,  either  by  forgery  or 
by  fraudulent  appropriation.  In  either  case,  the  most 
eligible  course  seemed  to  be  my  instant  expatriation. 
France  (this  being  the  year  of  peace)  or  Holland  would 
offer  the  best  asylum  until  the  affair  should  be  settled ; 
and,  as  there  could  be  no  anxieties  in  any  quarter  as  to 
the  main  thing  concerned  in  the  issue  —  viz.,  the  money 
• —  in  any  case  there  was  no  reason  to  fear  a  vindictive 
pursuit,  even  on  the  worst  assumption  as  regarded  the 
offence.  An  elderly  gentleman,  long  connected  with  the 
family,  and  in  many  cases  an  agent  for  the  guardians* 
at  this  moment  offered  his  services  as  counsellor  and 
protector  to  my  sister  Mary.  Two  hours  therefore  from 
the  arrival  of  the  Manchester  express  (who,  starting 
about  11  a.  m.,  had  reached  Chester  at  3  p.  m.),  all  the 
requisite  steps  having  been  concerted  with  one  of  the 
Chester  banks  for  getting  letters  of  credit,  etc.,  a  car« 
riage-and-four  was  at  the  Priory  gate,  into  which  stepped 
my  sister  Mary,  with  one  female  attendant  and  her 
friendly  escort.  And  thus,  the  same  day  on  which  I 
had  made  my  exit  from  Mr.  Lawson’s  saw  the  chase 
after  me  commencing.  Sunset  saw  the  pursuers  crossing 
-'he  Mersey,  and  trotting  into  Liverpool.  Thence  to 
Ormskirk,  thirteen  miles,  and  thence  to  'proud  Preston , 
about  twenty  more.  Within  a  trifle,  these  three  stages 
make  fifty  miles  ;  and  so  much  did  my  chasers,  that 
pursued  when  no  man  fled,  accomplish  before  sleeping, 
the  next  day,  long  and  long  before  the  time  when  J, 


100 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


m  my  humble  pedestrian  character,  reached  Chester,  my 
lister’s  party  had  reached  Ambleside  —  distant  about 
ninety  two  miles  from  Liverpool,  consequently  some¬ 
where  about  a  hundred  and  seven  miles  from  the  Priory. 
This  chasing  party,  with  good  reason,  supposed  them¬ 
selves  to  be  on  my  traces  ever  after  reaching  u  proud 
Preston,”  which  is  the  point  of  confluence  for  the 
Liverpool  and  Manchester  roads  northwards.  For  I 
myself,  having  originally  planned  my  route  for  the 
English  lakes,  purposely  suffered  some  indications  of 
that  plan  to  remain  behind  me,  in  the  hope  of  thus 
giving  a  false  direction  to  any  pursuit  that  might  be  at¬ 
tempted. 

The  further  course  of  this  chase  was  disagreeably 
made  known  to  me  about  four  years  later,  on  attaining 
my  majority,  by  a  “  little  account  ”  of  about  £150  against 
my  little  patrimonial  fortune.  Of  all  the  letters  from  the 
Priory  (which,  however,  from  natural  oversight  were 
not  thought  of  until  the  day  after  my  own  arrival  at 
the  Priory  —  i.  e.,  the  third  day  after  my  sister’s  depar¬ 
ture),  not  one  caught  them  :  which  was  unfortunate.  For 
the  journey  to  and  from  the  lakes,  together  with  a  circuit 
of  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  amongst  the 
lakes,  would  at  any  rate  have  run  up  to  nearly  four 
hundred  miles.  But  it  happened  that  my  pursuers  not 
having  time  to  sift  such  intelligence  as  they  received, 
were  misled  into  an  excursus  of  full  two  hundred  miles 
more,  by  chasing  an  imaginary  u  me  ”  to  the  caves,  thence 
to  Bolton  Abbey,  thence  nearly  to  York.  Altogether 
the  journey  amounted  to  above  six  hundred  miles,  all 
(performed  with  four  horses.  Now  at  that  time  the  cosf 
cf  four  horses  —  which  in  the  cheapest  hay  and  con 


CONFESSION'S  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


401 


seasons  was  three  shillings  a  mile,  and  in  deal  seasons 
four  —  was  three  and  sixpence  a  mile  ;  to  which  it  was 
usual  to  compute  an  average  addition  of  one  shilling 
a  mile  for  gates,  postilions,  hostlers ;  so  that  the  total 
amount,  with  the  natural  expenses  of  the  three  travellers 
at  the  inns,  ran  up  to  five  shillings  a  mile.  Conse¬ 
quently,  five  shillings  being  a  quarter  of  the  pound,  six 
hundred  miles  cost  the  quarter  of  £G00.  The  only  item 
in  this  long  account  which  consoled  me  to  the  amount 
of  a  solitary  smile  for  all  this  money  thrown  away,  was 
an  item  in  a  bill  at  Patterdale  (head  of  Ulleswater)  — - 

To  an  echo,  first  quality  ...  ...  ...  £0  10  0 

To  do.,  second  quality  ...  ...  ...  050 

It  seems  the  price  of  echoes  varied,  reasonably  enough, 
with  the  amount  of  gunpowder  consumed.  But  at  Low- 
wood,  on  Windermere,  half-crown  echoes  might  be  had 
by  those  base  snobs  who  would  put  up  with  a  vile  Brum¬ 
magem  substitute  for  “  the  genuine  article.” 

Trivial,  meantime,  as  regarded  any  permanent  conse¬ 
quences,  would  have  been  this  casual  inroad  upon  my 
patrimony.  Had  I  waited  until  my  sister  returned 
home,  which  I  might  have  been  sure  could  only  have 
been  delayed  through  the  imperfectly  concerted  system 
of  correspondence,  ah  would  have  prospered.  From  her 
I  should  have  received  the  cordiality  and  the  genial  sym¬ 
pathy  which  I  needed ;  I  could  have  quietly  pursued  my 
studies  ;  and  my  Oxford  matriculation  would  have  fol- 
’owed  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  unhappily,  having  for 
60  long  a  time  been  seriously  shaken  in  health,  any  in¬ 
terruption  of  my  wild  open-air  system  of  life  instantly 
threw  me  back  into  nervous  derangements.  Past  all  doubt 
it  had  now  become  that  the  a)  fresco  life,  to  which  I  had 

26 


402 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


looked  with  so  much  hopefulness  for  a  sure  and  rapid 
restoration  to  health,  was  even  more  potent  than  I  had 
supposed  it.  Literally  irresistible  it  seemed  in  reorgan* 
izing  the  system  of  my  languishing  powers.  Impatient, 
therefore,  under  the  absence  of  my  sister,  and  agitated 
every  hour  so  long  as  my  home  wanted  its  central  charra 
in  some  household  countenance,  some  avvTpcxfiov  o/jl/jl a, 
beaming  with  perfect  sympathy,  I  resolved  to  avail  my¬ 
self  of  those  wild  mountainous  and  sylvan  attractions 
which  at  present  lay  nearest  to  me.  Those  parts,  indeed, 
of  Flintshire,  or  even  of  Denbighshire,  which  lay  near  to 
Chester,  were  not  in  any  very  eminent  sense  attractive. 
The  vale  of  Gressford,  for  instance,  within  the  Flintshiie 
border,  and  yet  not  more  than  seven  miles  distant, 
offered  a  lovely  little  seclusion ;  and  to  this  I  had  a 
privileged  access  ;  and  at  first  I  tried  it ;  but  it  was  a 
dressed  and  ornamented  pleasure-ground;  and  two  ladies 
of  some  distinction,  nearly  related  to  each  other,  and  old 
friends  of  my  mother,  were  in  a  manner  the  ladies  para¬ 
mount  within  the  ring  fence  of  this  Arcadian  vale.  But 
this  did  not  offer  what  I  wanted.  Everything  was  ele¬ 
gant,  polished,  quiet,  throughout  the  lawns  and  groves 
of  this  verdant  retreat :  no  rudeness  was  allowed  here ; 
even  the  little  brooks  were  trained  to  “  behave  them¬ 
selves;”  and  the  two  villas  of  the  reigning  ladies  (Mrs. 
Warrington  and  Mrs.  Parry)  showed  the  perfection  of 
good  taste.  For  both  ladies  had  cultivated  a  taste  for 
painting,  and  I  believe  some  executive  power.  Here 
my  introductions  were  rather  too  favorable ;  since  they 
forced  me  into  society.  From  Gressford,  however,  the 
rlwacter  of  the  scene,  considered  as  a  daily  residence, 
soon  repelled  me,  however  otherwise  fascinating  by 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


403 


9 

the  accomplishments  of  its  two  possessors.  Just  two 
and-twenty  miles  from  Chester,  meantime,  lay  a  far 
grander  scene,  the  fine  vale  of  Llangollen  in  the  centre  oi 
Denbighshire.  Here,  also,  the  presiding  residents  were 
two  ladies,  whose  romantic  retirement  from  the  world  at 
an  early  age  had  attracted  for  many  years  a  general 
interest  to  their  persons,  habits,  and  opinions.  These 
ladies  were  Irish  —  Miss  Ponsonby,  and  Lady  Eleanor 
Butler,  a  sister  of  Lord  Ormond.  I  had  twice  been 
formally  presented  to  them  by  persons  of  rank  to  stamp 
a  value  upon  this  introduction.  But  naturally,  though 
high-bred  courtesy  concealed  any  such  open  expressions 
of  feeling,  they  must  have  felt  a  very  slight  interest  in 
myself  or  my  opinions. *  *  I  grieve  to  say  that  my  own 
feelings  were  not  more  ardent  towards  them.  Never¬ 
theless,  I  presented  myself  at  their  cottage  as  often  as  I 
passed  through  Llangollen  ;  and  was  always  courteously 
received  when  they  happened  to  be  in  the  country. 
However,  as  it  was  not  ladies  that  I  was  seeking  in  Wales, 
I  now  pushed  on  to  Carnarvonshire ;  and  for  some  weeks 


*  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that,  when  I,  in  this  year  1802,  and  again  in 
fter  years,  endeavored  to  impress  them  favorably  with  regard  to 
Wordsworth  as  a  poet  (that  subject  having  not  been  introduced  by  my- 

*elf,  hut  by  one  of  the  ladies,  who  happened  to  have  a  Cambridge 
friend  intimate  with  the  man,  and  perhaps  with  his  works),  neither  of 
them  was  disposed  to  look  with  any  interest  or  hopefulness  upon  his 
pretensions.  But,  at  a  period  long  subsequent  to  this/when  the  House 
Df  Commons  had  rung  with  applause  on  Sergeant  Talfourd’s  mention 
of  his  name,  and  when  all  American  tourists  of  any  distinction  flocked 
annually  to  Rvdal  Mount,  Wordsworth’s  own  poems  bear  witness  that 
ft  great  revolution  had  been  worked  at  Llangollen.  I  mention  thia 
anecdote,  because  I  have  good  reason  to  think  that  a  large  proportion 
f4  the  “conversions”  in  the  case  of  Wordsworth  took  place  under  thfl 
same  influence. 


404 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


took  a  very  miniature  suite  of  rooms  —  viz.,  one  room 
and  a  closet  —  at  Bangor. 

FROM  WALES  TO  LONDON.44 

There  were  already,  even  in  those  days  1802,  nu¬ 
merous  inns,  erected  at  reasonable  distances  from  each 
other,  for  the  accommodation  of  tourists:  and  no  sort  o i 
disgrace  attached  in  Wales,  as  too  generally  upon  the 
great  roads  of  England,  to  the  pedestrian  style  of  travel¬ 
ling.  Indeed,  the  majority  of  those  whom  I  met  as  fel¬ 
low-tourists  in  the  quiet  little  cottage-parlors  of  the 
Welsh  posting-houses  were  pedestrian  travellers.  All 
the  way  from  Shrewsbury  through  Llangollen,  Llanrwst,* 
Conway,  Bangor,  then  turning  to  the  left  at  right  angles 
through  Carnarvon,  and  so  on  to  Dolgelly  (the  chief 
town  of  Merionethshire),  Tan-y-Bwlch,  Harlech,  Bax- 
mouth,  and  through  the  sweet  solitudes  of  Cardiganshire, 
or  turning  back  sharply  towards  the  English  border 
through  the  gorgeous  wood  scenery  of  Montgomery¬ 
shire  —  everywhere  at  intermitting  distances  of  twelve 
to  sixteen  miles,  I  found  the  most  comfortable  inns.  One 
feature  indeed  of  repose  in  all  this  chain  of  solitary  rest¬ 
ing-houses  —  viz.,  the  fact  that  none  of  them  rose  abov« 
two  stories  in  height  —  was  due  to  the  modest  scale  on 
which  the  travelling  system  of  the  Principality  had 
moulded  itself  in  correspondence  to  the  calls  of  England, 
which  then  (but  be  it  remembered  this  then  was  in  1802, 
^  year  of  peace)  threw  a  very  small  proportion  of  her 
fast  migratory  population  annually  into  this  sequestered 

*  “  Llanrwet —  This  is  an  alarming  word  for  the  eye  ;  one  vovre 
fca  vrhat  the  English  eye  counts  as  seven  consonants  :  but  it  is  easilj 
lpnaounced  as  Tlanroost. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER.  405 

channel.  No  huge  Babylonian  centres  of  commerce 
towered  into  the  clouds  on  these  sweet  sylvan  routes : 
no  hurricanes  of  haste,  or  fever-stricken  armies  of  horses 
and  dying  chariots,  tormented  the  echoes  in  these  moun¬ 
tain  recesses.  And  it  has  often  struck  me  that  a  world- 
wearied  man,  who  sought  for  the  peace  of  monasteries 
separated  from  their  gloomy  captivity,  — -  peace  and 
silence  such  as  theirs  combined  with  the  large  liberty  ol 
nature,  —  could  not  do  better  than  revolve  amongst  these 
modest  inns  in  the  five  northern  Welsh  counties  of  Den¬ 
bigh,  Montgomery,  Carnarvon,  Merioneth,  and  Cardigan. 
Sleeping,  for  instance,  and  breakfasting  at  Carnarvon  ; 
then,  by  an  easy  nine-mile  walk,  going  forwards  to  din¬ 
ner  at  Bangor,  thence  to  Aber  —  nine  miles;  or  to 
Llanberris  ;  and  so  on  forever,  accomplishing  seventy 
to  ninety  or  one  hundred  miles  in  a  week.  This,  upon 
actual  experiment,  and  for  week  after  week,  I  found  the 
most  delightful  of  lives.  Here  was  the  eternal  motion 
of  winds  and  rivers,  or  of  the  Wandering  Jew  liberated 
from  the  persecution  which  compelled  him  to  move,  and 
turned  his  breezy  freedom  into  a  killing  captivity. 
Happier  life  I  cannot  imagine  than  this  vagrancy,  if  the 
weather  were  but  tolerable,  through  endless  successions 
of  changing  beauty,  and  towards  evening  a  courteous 
welcome  in  a  pretty  rustic  home  —  that  having  all  the 
luxuries  of  a  fine  hotel  (in  particular  some  luxuries  *  that 
are  almost  sacred  to  Alpine  regions),  was  at  the  same 
time  liberated  from  the  inevitable  accompaniments  of 
inch  hotels  in  great  cities  or  at  great  travelling  stations 
—  viz.,  the  tumult  and  uproar. 


-  3ut  a  luxury  of  another  class,  and  quite  peculiar  to  WaltB,  was 
"jo.  tho^e  days  (I  nope  in  these)  the  Welsh  harp,  in  attendance  at  everj 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


Life  on  this  model  was  but  too  delightful ;  and  to  my¬ 
self  especially,  that  am  never  thoroughly  in  health  un¬ 
less  when  having  pedestrian  exercise  to  the  extent  of 
fifteen  miles  at  the  most,  and  eight  to  ten  miles  at  the 
least.  Living  thus,  a  man  earned  his  daily  enjoyment. 
But  what  did  it  cost  ?  About  half-a-guinea  a-day  :  whilst 
my  boyish  allowance  was  not  a  third  of  this.  The  fla¬ 
grant  health,  health  boiling  over  in  fiery  rapture,  which 
ran  along,  side  by  side,  with  exercise  on  this  scale,  whilst 
all  the  while  from  morning  to  night  I  was  inhaling 
mountain  air,  soon  passed  into  a  hateful  scourge.  Per¬ 
quisites  to  servants  and  a  bed  would  have  absorbed  the 
whole  of  my  weekly  guinea.  My  policy  therefore  was, 
if  the  autumnal  air  were  warm  enough,  to  save  this  ex¬ 
pense  of  a  bed  and  the  chambermaid  by  sleeping  amongst 
ferns  or  furze  upon  a  hillside ;  and  perhaps  with  a  cloak 
of  sufficient  weight  as  well  as  compass,  or  an  Arab’s  bur¬ 
noose,  this  would  have  been  no  great  hardship.  But 
then  in  the  daytime  what  an  oppressive  burden  to  carry 
So  perhaps  it  was  as  well  that  I  had  no  cloak  at  all.  I 
did,  however,  for  some  weeks  try  the  plan  of  carrying  a 
canvas  tent  manufactured  by  myself,  and  not  larger 
than  an  ordinary  umbrella :  but  to  pitch  this  securely 
I  found  difficult;  and  on  windy  nights  it  became  a  troulv 
lesome  companion.  As  winter  drew  near,  this  bivouack¬ 
ing  system  became  too  dangerous  to  attempt.  Still  one  • 
may  bivouac  decently,  barring  rain  and  wind,  up  to  the 
end  of  October.  And  I  counted,  on  the  whole,  that  in  a 
fortnight  I  spent  nine  nights  abroad.  There  are,  as 
perhaps  the  reader  knows  by  experience,  no  jaguars  in 
Wales  —  nor  pumas  —  nor  anacondas  —  nor  (generally 
jpeaking)  any  Thugs.  What  I  feared  most,  but  perhapi 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


407 


rnly  through  ignorance  of  zoology,  was,  lest,  whilst  my 
sleeping  face  was  upturned  to  the  stars,  some  one  of  the 
many  little  Brahmimcal-looking  cows  on  the  Cambrian 
hills,  one  or  other,  might  poach  her  foot  into  the  centre 
of  my  face.  I  do  not  suppose  any  fixed  hostility  of  that 
nature  to  English  faces  in  Welsh  cows  :  but  everywdiera 
I  observe  in  the  feminine  mind  something  of  beautiful 
caprice,  a  floral  exuberance  of  that  charming  wilful-* 
ness  which  characterizes  our  dear  human  sisters  I  fear 
through  all  worlds.  Against  Thugs  I  had  Juvenal’s 
license  to  be  careless  in  the  emptiness  of  my  pockets 
(cantabit  vacuus *  coram  latrone  viator).  But  I  fear 
that  Juvenal’s  license  will  not  always  hold  water. 
There  are  people  bent  upon  cudgelling  one  who  will 
persist  in  excusing  one’s  having  nothing  but  a  bad  shil¬ 
ling  in  one’s  purse,  without  reading  in  that  Juvenalian 
vacuitas  any  privilege  or  license  of  exemption  from  the 
general  fate  of  travellers  that  intrude  upon  the  solitude 
of  robbers. 

Dr.  Johnson,  upon  some  occasion,  wdiich  I  have  for¬ 
gotten,  is  represented  by  his  biographers  as  accounting 
for  an  undeserving  person’s  success  in  these  terms  : 
u  Why,  I  suppose  that  his  nonsense  suited  their  non¬ 
sense.”  Can  that  be  the  humiliating  solution  of  my  own 
colloquial  success  at  this  time  in  Carnarvonshire  inns  ? 
Do  not  surest  such  a  thought,  most  courteous  reader,, 
No  matter :  won  in  whatsoever  way,  success  is  success  ; 

*  “  Vacuus:  ”  —  I  am  afraid,  though  many  a  year  has  passed  since 
ast  I  read  Juvenal,  that  the  true  classical  sense  of  vacuus  is,  careless, 
"Hear  from  all  burden  of  anxiety,  so  that  vacuitas  will  be  the  result  of 
.immunity  from  robbery.  But  suffer  me  to  understand  it  in  the  sense 
it  free  from  the  burden  of  property,  iu  which  sense  vacuitas  would  be 
the  cause  of  such  an  immunity. 


408 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 

and  even  nonsense,  if  it  is  to  be  victorious  nonsense,  — « 
victorious  over  the  fatal  habit  of  yawning  in  those  who 
listen,  and  in  some  cases  over  the  habit  of  disputing,  — 
must  involve  a  deeper  art  or  more  effective  secret  of 
power  than  is  easily  attained.  Nonsense,  in  fact,  is  a 
very  difficult  thing.  Not  every  seventh  son  of  a  seventh 
eon  (to  use  Milton’s  words)  is  equal  to  the  task  of  keep¬ 
ing  and  maintaining  a  company  of  decent  men  in  ortho¬ 
dox  nonsense  for  a  matter  of  two  hours.  Come  from 
what  fountain  it  may,  all  talk  that  succeeds  to  the  ex¬ 
tent  of  raising  a  wish  to  meet  the  talker  again,  must 
contain  salt ;  must  be  seasoned  with  some  flavoring  ele 
ment  pungent  enough  to  neutralize  the  natural  tenden¬ 
cies  of  all  mixed  conversation,  not  vigilantly  tended,  to 
lose  itself  in  insipidities  and  platitudes.  Above  all 
things,  I  shunned,  as  I  would  shun  a  pestilence,  Coler¬ 
idge’s  capital  error,  which  through  life  he  practised,  of 
keeping  the  audience  in  a  state  of  passiveness.  Unjust 
this  was  to  others,  but  most  of  all  to  himself.  This 
eternal  stream  of  talk  which  never  for  one  instant  inter¬ 
mitted,  and  allowed  no  momentary  opportunity  of  reac¬ 
tion  to  the  persecuted  and  baited  auditor,  was  absolute 
ruin  to  the  interests  of  the  talker  himself.  Always  pas¬ 
sive  —  always  acted  upon,  never  allowed  to  react,  into 
what  state  did  the  poor  afflicted  listener  —  he  that  played 
'.he  vole  of  listener  —  collapse  ?  He  returned  home  in 
the  exhausted  condition  of  one  that  has  been  drawn  up 
just  before  death  from  the  bottom  of  a  well  occupied  by 
foul  gases  ;  and,  of  course,  hours  before  ne  had  reached 
that  perilous  point  of  depression,  he  had  lost  all  power  o* 
listinguishing,  understanding,  or  connecting.  I,  for  my 
jD&rt,  without  needing  to  think  of  the  unamiable  arro* 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATFB. 


m 


gance  involved  in  such  a  habit,  simply  on  principles  of 
deadliest  selfishness,  should  have  avoided  thus  incapack 
tating  my  hearer  from  doing  any  justice  to  the  rhetoric 
or  the  argument  with  which  I  might  address  him. 

Some  great  advantages  I  had  for  colloquial  purposes, 
and  for  engaging  the  attention  of  people  wiser  than 
myself.  Ignorant  I  was  in  a  degree  past  all  imagination 
of  daily  life  —  even  as  it  exists  in  England.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  having  the  advantage  of  a  prodigious  mem¬ 
ory,  and  the  far  greater  advantage  of  a  logical  instinct 
for  feeling  in  a  moment  the  secret  analogies  or  parallel¬ 
isms  that  connected  things  else  apparently  remote,  I  en¬ 
joyed  these  two  peculiar  gifts  for  conversation :  first,  an 
inexhaustible  fertility  of  topics,  and  therefore  of  resources 
for  illustrating  or  for  varying  any  subject  that  chance  or 
purpose  suggested  ;  secondly,  a  prematurely  awakened 
sense  of  art  applied  to  conversation.  I  had  learned  the 
use  of  vigilance  in  evading  with  civility  the  approach  of 
wearisome  discussions,  and  in  impressing,  quietly  and 
oftentimes  imperceptibly,  a  new  movement  upon  dia¬ 
logues  that  loitered  painfully,  or  see-sawed  unprofitable 
That  it  was  one  function  of  art  to  hide  and  mask  itself 
{artis  est  artem  celare ),  this  I  well  knew.  Neither  waa 
there  much  art  required.  The  chief  demand  was  for  new 
facts,  or  new  views,  or  for  views  newly-colored  impress¬ 
ing  novelty  upon  old  facts.  To  throw  in  a  little  of  the 
mysterious  every  now  and  then  was  useful,  even  with 
those  that  by  temperament  were  averse  to  the  myste- 
tious  ;  pointed  epigrammatic  sayings  and  jests  —  even 
somewhat  worn  —  were  useful ;  a  seasonable  quotation 
,0  verse  was  always  effective  ;  and  illustrative  anecdotes 
tififusod  a  grace  over  the  whole  movement  of  the  dia- 


110 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


!ogue.  It  would  have  been  coxcombry  to  practise  any 
elaborate  or  any  conspicuous  art  :  few  and  simple  were 
any  artifices  that  I  ever  employed ;  but,  being  hidden 
and  seasonable,  they  were  often  effective.  And  the  whole 
result  was,  that  I  became  exceedingly  popular  within 
tny  narrow  circle  of  friends.  This  circle  was  necessarily 
a  fluctuating  one,  since  it  was  mainly  composed  of 
tourists  that  happened  to  linger  for  a  few  weeks  in  or 
near  Snowdonia,  making  their  headquarters  at  Bethgel- 
lert  or  Carnarvon,  or  at  the  utmost  roaming  no  farther 
than  the  foot  of  Cader  Idris.  Amongst  these  fugitive 
members  of  our  society,  I  recollect  with  especial  pleasure 
Mr.  De  Ilaren,  an  accomplished  young  German,  who 
held,  or  had  held,  the  commission  of  lieutenant  in  our 
British  navy,  but  now,  in  an  interval  of  peace,  was 
seeking  to  extend  his  knowledge  of  England,  and  also 
of  the  English  language  ;  though  in  that ,  as  regarded 
the  fullest  command  of  it  colloquially,  he  had  little,  in¬ 
deed,  to  learn.  From  him  it  was  that  I  obtained  my 
first  lessons  in  German,  and  my  first  acquaintance  with 
German  literature.  Paul  Richter  I  then  first  heard  of, 
together  with  Hippel,  a  humorist  admired  by  Kant,  and 
Harnann,  also  classed  as  a  humorist,  but  a  nondescript 
writer,  singularly  obscure,  whom  I  have  never  since  seen 
in  the  hands  of  any  Englishman,  except  once  of  Sir  Wil¬ 
liam  Hamilton.  With  all  these  writers  Mr.  De  Ilaren 
had  the  means  of  making  me  usefully  acquainted  in  the 
email  portable  library  which  filled  one  of  his  trunks. 
But  the  most  stationary  members  of  this  semiditerary  • 
glrcle  were  Welshmen  ;  two  of  them  lawyers,  one  a  clergy 
Plan.  This  last  had  been  regularly  educated  at  Oxford 
—  as  a  member  of  Jesus  (the  Welsh  college)  — and  wai 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


41 1 


ft  man  of  extensive  information.  The  lawyers  had  not 
enjoyed  the  same  advantages,  but  they  had  read  diligent¬ 
ly,  and  were  interesting  companions.  Wales,  as  is  pretty 
well  known,  breeds  a  population  somewhat  litigious.  I 
do  not  think  the  worse  of  them  for  that.  The  martial 
Butlers  and  the  heroic  Talbots  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
having  no  regular  opening  for  their  warlike  fury  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  took  to  quarrelling  with  each  other ; 
and  no  letters  are  more  bitter  than  those  which  to  this 
day  survive  from  the  hostile  correspondence  of  the 
brother  *  Talbots  contemporary  with  the  last  days  of 
Shakespeare.  One  channel  being  closed  against  their 
martial  propensities,  naturally,  they  opened  such  others 
as  circumstances  made  available.  This  temper,  widely 
spread  amongst  the  lower  classes  of  the  Welsh,  made  it 
a  necessity  that  the  lawyers  should  itinerate  on  market 
days  through  all  the  principal  towns  in  their  districts. 
In  those  towns  continually  I  met  them  ;  and  continually 
we  renewed  our  literary  friendship. 

Meantime  alternately  I  sailed  upon  the  high-priced 
and  the  low-priced  tack.  So  exceedingly  cheap  were 
provisions  at  that  period,  when  the  war  taxation  of  Mr. 
Pitt  was  partially  intermitting,  that  it  was  easy  beyond 
measure  upon  any  three  weeks’  expenditure,  by  living 
with  cottagers,  to  save  two  guineas  out  of  the  three. 
Mr.  De  Haren  assured  me  that  even  in  an  inn,  and  noi 
in  a  poor  man’s  cottage  (but  an  unpretending  rustic 
mn,  where  the  mistress  of  the  house  took  upon  herself 
ihe  function  of  every  possible  servant  in  turn  —  cook, 
waiter,  chambermaid,  boots,  ostler),  he  had  passed  a  day 

*  See  especial  v  in  the  book  written  by  Sir  EgertcD  BryC.gea  [I  for 
RBt  the  title)  on  the  Peerage  in  the  reign  of  JameL  E 


112 


ADDITIONS  TO  THB 


&r  two ;  and  for  what  he  considered  a  really  elegant 
dinner,  as  regarded  everything  except  the  table  equipaga 
(that  being  rude  and  coarse),  he  had  paid  only  sixpence. 
This  very  inn,  about  ten  or  twelve  miles  bouth  of  Dol- 
gelly,  I  myself  visited  some  time  latei ;  and  I  found  Mr. 
De  Karen’ s  account  in  all  points  confirmed  ;  the  sole 
drawback  upon  the  comfort  of  the  visitor  being,  that  the 
fuel  was  chiefly  of  green  wood,  and  with  a  chimney  that 
smoked.  I  suffered  so  much  under  this  kind  of  smoke, 
which  irritates  and  inflames  the  eyes  more  than  any 
other,  that  on  the  following  day  reluctantly  I  took  leave 
of  that  obliging  pluralist  the  landlady,  and  really  felt 
myself  blushing  on  settling  the  bill,  until  I  bethought 
me  of  the  green  wood,  which,  upon  the  whole,  seemed 
to  balance  the  account.  I  could  not  then,  nor  can  I  now, 
account  for  these  preposterously  low  prices;  which  same 
prices,  strange  to  say,  ruled  (as  Wordsworth  and  his 
sister  often  assured  me)  among  the  same  kind  of  scenery 
. —  i.  e.,  amongst  the  English  lakes  —  at  the  very  same 
time.  To  account  for  it,  as  people  often  do,  by  alleging 
the  want  of  markets  for  agricultural  produce,  is  crazy 
political  economy ;  since  the  remedy  for  paucity  of 
markets,  and  consequent  failure  of  competition,  is,  cer¬ 
tainly  not  to  sell  at  losing  rates,  but  to  forbear  producing, 
and  consequently  not  to  sell  at  all.  # 

*  Thirteen  years  later  —  viz.,  in  the  year  of  "Waterloo — happening 
to  walk  through  the  whole  principality  from  south  to  north,  beginning 
<tt  Cardiff,  and  ending  at  Bangor,  I  turned  aside  about  twenty-five 
sanies  to  inquire  after  the  health  of  my  excellent  hostess,  that  deter¬ 
mined  p.uralist  and  intense  antipole  of  all  possible  sinecurists. 
sound  her  cleaning  a  pair  of  boots  and  spurs,  and  purposing  (I  rather 
to  ink)  to  enter  next  upon  the  elegant  office  of  greasing  a  horse’s  heels. 
&  that  design,  however,  she  wa*  thwarted  for  the  present  by  mysaL 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


415 

So  cheap  in  fact  were  all  provisions,  which  one  had 
anv  chance  of  meeting  with  in  a  laboring  man’s  house, 
that  I  found  it  difficult  under  such  a  roof  to  spend  six¬ 
pence  a  day.  Tea  or  coffee  there  was  none ;  and  I  did 
not  at  that  period  very  much  care  for  either.  Milk,  with 
bread  (coarse,  but  more  agreeable  by  much  than  the  in¬ 
sipid  whity-gray  bread  of  towns),  potatoes  if  one  wished, 
and  also  a  little  goat’s,  or  kid’s  flesh  —  these  composed 
the  cottager’s  choice  of  viands  ;  not  luxurious,  but  pala¬ 
table  enough  to  a  person  who  took  much  exercise. 
And,  if  one  wished,  fresh-water  fish  could  be  had  cheap 

and  another  tourist  who  claimed  her  services  in  three  or  four  other 
characters  previously.  I  inquired  after  the  chimney  —  was  it  still 
smoking  V  She  seemed  surprised  that  it  had  ever  been  suspected  of 
anything  criminal;  so,  as  it  was  not  a  season  for  fires,  I  said  no  more. 
But  I  saw  plenty  of  green  wood,  and  but  a  small  proportion  of  peats. 
[  fear,  therefore,  that  this,  the  state  room  of  the  whole  concern  still,  poi¬ 
sons  the  peace  of  the  unhappy  tourists.  One  personal  indemnification, 
meantime,  I  must  mention  which  this  little  guilty  room  made  to  me  on 
that  same  night  for  all  the  teai's  it  had  caused  me  to  shed.  It  hap- 
Dened  that  there  was  a  public  dance  held  at  this  inn  on  this  very  night. 
I  therefore  retired  early  into  my  bedroom,  having  had  so  long  a  walk 
and  not  wishing  to  annoy  the  company,  or  the  excellent  landlady, 
who  had,  I  daresay,  to  play  the  fiddle  to  the  dancers.  The  noise  and 
uproar  -were  almost  insupportable  ;  so  that  I  could  not  sleep  at  all. 
At  three  o’clock  all  became  silent,  the  company  having  departed  in  a 
body.  Suddenly  from  the  little  parlor,  separated  from  my  bedroom 
overhead  by  the  slightest  and  most  pervious  of  ceilings,  arose  with  tho 
rising  dawn  the  very  sweetest  of  female  voices  perhaps  that  ever  l 
had  heard,  although  for  many  years  an  habitue  of  the  opera.  She 
w&3  a  stranger;  a  visitor  f~om  some  distance;  and  (I  was  told  in  the 
morning)  a  Methodist.  What  she  sang,  or  at  least  sang  last,  were 
beautiful  verses  of  Shirley,  ending  — 

“  Only  the  actions  of  the  just 
Smell  sweet,  and  blossom  in  the  dust.’r 

fida  incident  caused  me  to  forget  and  forgive  the  wicked  .itila  cliinr 

|A7, 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


114 

enough  ;  especially  trout  of  the  very  finest  quality*  In 
these  circumstances,  I  never  found  it  easy  to  spend  ©veD 
five  shillings  (no,  not  three  shillings,  unless  whortleber* 
ries  or  fish  had  been  bought)  in  one  week.  And  thus 
it  was  easy  enough  to  create  funds  for  my  periodical 
transmigrations  back  into  the  character  of  gentleman - 
tourist. 

....  About  this  time — just  when  it  was  becoming 
daily  more  difficult  to  eke  out  the  weekly  funds  for  high- 
priced  inns  by  the  bivouacking  system  —  as  if  some 
overmastering  fiend,  some  instinct  of  migration,  sorrow¬ 
ful  but  irresistible,  were  driving  me  forth  to  wander  like 
the  unhappy  Io  of  the  Grecian  my  thus,  some  oestrum  ot 
hidden  persecution  that  bade  my  fly  when  no  man  pur¬ 
sued  ;  not  in  false  hope,  for  my  hopes  whispered  but 
a  doubtful  chance,  not  in  reasonable  fear,  for  all  was 
sweet  pastoral  quiet  and  autumnal  beauty  around  me, 
suddenly  I  took  a  fierce  resolution  to  sacrifice  my  weekly 
allowance,  to  slip  my  anchor,  and  to  throw  myself  in 
desperation  upon  London.  Not  to  make  the  case  more 
frantic  than  it  really  was,  let  the  reader  remember  what 
it  was  that  I  found  grievous  in  my  present  position,  and 
lpon  what  possibilities  it  was  that  I  relied  fov  bettering 
it.  With  a  more  extended  knowledge  of  life  than  I  at 
that  time  had,  it  would  not  have  been  so  hopeless  a 
speculation  for  a  boy,  having  my  accomplishments,  to 
launch  himself  on  the  boundless  ocean  of  London.  I 
possessed  attainments  that  bore  a  money  value.  For 
instance,  as  a  “  Reader  ”  to  the  Press  in  the  field  oi 
Greek  re-publications,  I  might  perhaps  have  earned  a 
*ivelihood.  But  these  chances,  which  I  really  had,  never 
occurred  to  me  in  the  light  of  useful  resources  ;  or,  t« 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  >PIUM-EATER. 


415 


speak  tlie  truth,  they  were  unknown  to  me  ;  and  those, 
which  I  chiefly  relied  on,  were  most  unlikely  to  prove 
available.  But  what,  meantime,  was  it  that  I  com 
plained  of  in  the  life  that  I  was  at  present  living?  It 
was  this  ;  the  dilemma  proposed  to  my  choice  was  — - 
that  if  I  would  —  positively  woidd — have  society,  I 
must  live  at  inns.  But  if  I  reconciled  myself  to  a  quiet 
stationary  abode  in  some  village  or  hamlet,  in  that  case 
for  me ,  so  transcendently  careless  about  diet,  my  weekly 
guinea  would  have  procured  all  that  I  wanted ;  and  in 
some  houses  the  advantage,  quite  indispensable  to  my 
comfort,  of  a  private  sitting-room.  Yet  even  here  the 
expense  was  most  needlessly  enhanced  by  the  aristocratic 
luxuriousness  of  our  English  system,  which  presumes  it 
impossible  for  a  gentleman  to  sleep  in  his  sitting-room. 
On  this  footing,  however,  [  might  perhaps  have  com¬ 
manded  clean  and  comfortable  accommodations  in  some 
respectable  families,  to  whom  my  noiseless  habits,  and 
my  respectful  courtesy  to  women,  would  have  recom¬ 
mended  me  as  a  desirable  inmate.  But  the  deadly 
drawback  on  this  scheme  was  —  the  utter  want  of  access 
to  books,  or  (generally  speaking)  to  any  intellectual  in¬ 
tercourse.  I  languished  all  the  day  through,  and  all  the 
week  through  —  with  nothing  whatever,  not  so  much  as 
tfie  county  newspaper  once  in  seven  days  to  relieve  my 
vnoital  ennui. 

I  have  told  the  reader  how  inexplicably  cheap  was 
the  li/e  in  poor  men’s  cottages.  But  this  did  not  affect 
tfie  prices  at  the  first-chass  hotels,  where  only  I  had  any 
thance  of  meeting  society.  Those,  and  chiefly  on  the 
pl*a  that  the  season  was  so  brief,  charged  London  prices. 
To  meet  such  prices,  it  would  no  longer  be  possible,  av 


116 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


winter  came  oh,  to  raise  one-half  the  funds  by  passing 
half  the  time  in  a  less  costly  mode.  There  was  an  end 
of  any  feasible  plan  for  interleaving  days  of  hardship 
with  days  of  ease  and  intellectual  luxury.  Meantime, 
whilst  this  perplexity  was  resounding  in  one  ear,  in  the 
other  were  continually  echoing  the  kind  offers  of  my 
Welsh  friends,  especially  the  two  lawyers,  to  furnish  me 
with  any  money  which  I  might  think  necessary  for  my 
visit  to  London.  Twelve  guineas,  at  length,  I  men¬ 
tioned  as  probably  enough.  This  they  lent  me  on  the 
spot.  And  now,  all  at  once,  I  was  —  ready  for  Lon¬ 
don. 

My  farewell  to  the  Principality  was  in  the  same  un¬ 
assuming  character  of  pedestrian  tourist  as  that  in  which 
I  had  entered  it.  Impedimenta  of  any  kind  —  that  is, 
the  encumbrances  of  horse  or  baggage  —  I  had  none 
even  to  the  last.  Where  I  pleased,  and  ivhen  I  pleased, 
I  could  call  a  halt.  My  last  halt  of  any  duration  was 
at  Oswestry  ;  mere  accident  carried  me  thither,  and  ac¬ 
cident  very  naturally  in  so  small  a  town  threw  me  across 
the  path  of  the  very  warmest  amongst  my  Welsh  friends, 
who,  as  it  turned  out,  resided  there.  He,  by  mere  coer¬ 
cion  of  kindness,  detained  me  for  several  days;  for  de¬ 
nial  he  would  not  take.  Being  as  yet  unmarried,  he 
could  not  vivify  the  other  attractions  of  his  most  hospi¬ 
table  abode  by  the  reinforcement  of  female  society.  His 
own,  however,  coming  recommended  as  it  did  by  the 
graces  of  a  youthful  frankness  and  a  kindling  intellect, 
was  all-sufficient  for  the  beguiling  of  the  longest  day. 
This  Welsh  friend  was  one  of  many  whom  I  have 
srossed  in  life,  chained  by  early  accident  or  by  domestic 
oeeaseity  to  the  calls  of  a  professional  service,  whilst  at 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


417 


ibe  while  his  whole  nature,  wild  and  refractory  rau 
headlong  into  intellectual  channels  that  could  not  bo 
trained  into  reconciliation  with  his  hourly  duties.  His 
library  was  already  large,  and  as  select  as  under  the  or¬ 
dinary  chances  of  provincial  book-collection  could  be 
reasonably  expected.  For  generally  one-half,  at  the 
least,  of  a  young  man’s  library  in  a  provincial  town  may 
be  characterized  as  a  mere  dropping  or  deposition  from 
local  accidents,  a  casual  windfall  of  fruits  stripped  and 
strewed  by  the  rough  storms  of  bankruptcy.  In  many 
cases,  again,  such  a  provincial  library  will  represent  sim¬ 
ply  that  part  of  the  heavy  baggage  which  many  a  family, 
on  removing  to  some  distant  quarter,  has  shrunk  from 
the  cost  of  transporting,  books  being  amongst  the  heav¬ 
iest  of  household  goods.  Sometimes  also,  though  more 
rarely,  it  happens  that  an  ancient  family  dying  out,  hav¬ 
ing  unavoidably  left  to  executors  the  duty  of  selling 
every  chattel  attached  to  its  ancient  habits  of  life,  sud¬ 
denly  with  meteoric  glare  there  emerges  from  its  hiding 
place  of  centuries  some  great  jewel  of  literature,  a  Firgt 
Folio  of  the  1623  Shakspere,  an  uncastrated  Decame- 
rone,  or  other  dazzling  /cei/x^Aiov.  And  thus  it  is  that  a 
large  provincial  library,  though  naturally  and  peacefully 
accumulated,  yet  sometimes  shows  mute  evidence  of  con¬ 
vulsions  and  household  tragedies ;  speaks  us  if  by  records 
of  storms,  and  through  dim  mementoes  of  half-forgotten 
shipwrecks.  Real  shipwrecks  present  often  such  inco¬ 
herent  libraries  on  the  floors  of  the  hungry  sea.  Mag¬ 
nificent  is  the  library  that  sleeps  unvexed  by  criticism  at 
the  bottom  of  the  ocean,  Indian  or  Atlantic,  from  the 
mere  annual  contributions  and  keepsakes,  the  never  end- 
fag  Forget-me-nots  of  mighty  English  Indig  men.  Th« 
27 


418 


ADDITIONS  TO  THK 


Flalsewell,  with  its  sad  parting  between  the  captain  and 
his  daughters,  the  Grosvenor,  the  Winterton,  the  Aber 
gavenny,  and  scores  of  vessels  on  the  same  scale,  with 
populations  varying  by  births,  deaths,  and  marriages, 
populations  large  as  cities,  and  rich  as  gold  in  nes,  capa* 
ble  of  factions  and  rebellions,  all  and  each  have  liberally 
patronized,  by  the  gift  of  many  Large-Paper  copies,  that 
vast  submarine  Bodleian,  which  stands  in  far  less  risk 
from  fire  than  the  msolent  Bodleian  of  the  upper  world. 
This  private  Oswestry  library  wore  something  of  the 
same  wild  tumultuary  aspect,  fantastic  and  disordinate, 
but  was  not  for  that  reason  the  less  attractive  ;  every¬ 
thing  was  there  that  you  never  expected  to  meet  any¬ 
where,  b  it  certainly  not  to  meet  in  company  ;  so  that, 
what  between  the  library  and  the  mercurial  conversation 
of  its  proprietor,  elated  by  the  rare  advantage  of  frater¬ 
nal  sympathy,  I  was  in  danger  of  finding  attractions 
strong  enough  to  lay  me  asleep  over  the  proprieties  of 
the  case,  or  even  to  set  me  a-dreaming  over  imaginary 
cases.  In  fact,  I  had  some  excuse  for  doing  so  ;  since  I 
knew  very  imperfectly  the  common  routine  of  my  friend’s 
life  ;  and  from  his  lofty  Castilian  sense  of  the  obligations 
imposed  by  the  great  goddess  Hospitality,  I  never  should 
have  been  suffered  to  guess  at  the  extent  in  which  I  was 
now  gradually  and  unconsciously  coming  daily  into  col* 
ision  with  the  regular  calls  upon  his  time.  To  ride  off, 
under  mask  of  “  business,”  upon  a  circuit  of  a  week, 
would,  in  his  eyes,  have  been  virtually ,  as  regards  the 
fesult,  meanly  and  evasively,  as  regards  the  mode,  to 
turn  me  out  of  his  house.  He  would  sooner  have  died. 
But  in  the  meantime  an  accident,  which  revealed  to  ma 
the  true  stare  of  things,  or  at  least  revealed  a  suspicion 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


419 


©f  it,  all  at  once  armed  my  sense  of  delicacy  against  any 
farther  lingering.  Suddenly  and  peremptorily  I  an¬ 
nounced  my  departure  —  that  and  the  mode  of  it.  For 
A  long  time  he  fought  with  unaffected  zeal  against  my 
purpose,  as  nowise  essential  to  his  own  free  action.  Buk 
at  last,  seeing  that  I  was  in  earnest,  he  forebore  to  op¬ 
pose  my  plan,  contenting  himself  with  guiding  and  im¬ 
proving  its  details.  My  plan  had  been,  to  walk  over  the 
border  into  England,  as  far  as  Shrewsbury  (distant  from 
Oswestry,  I  think,  about  eighteen  miles),  and  there  to 
ascend  any  of  the  heavy  stages  which  would  convey  me 
cheaply  to  Birmingham  —  the  grand  focus  to  which  all 
the  routes  of  England  in  its  main  central  area  converge. 
Any  such  plan  moved  on  the  assumption  that  rain  would 
be  falling  steadily  and  heavily  —  a  reasonable  assumption 
at  the  close  of  November.  But,  in  the  possible  event 
of  fair  weather  lasting  over  four  or  five  days,  what  should 
prevent  me  from  traversing  the  whole  distance  on  foot? 
It  is  true,  that  the  aristocratic  scowl  of  the  landlord 
might  be  looked  for  as  a  customary  salutation  at  the 
close  of  each  day’s  journey  ;  but,  unless  at  solitary  post¬ 
ing-houses,  this  criminal  fact  of  having  advanced  by  base 
pedestrian  methods,  known  only  to  patriarchs  of  older 
days  and  to  modern  “  tramps  ”  (so  they  are  called  in 
solemn  acts  of  Parliament),  is  easily  expiated  and 
cleansed,  by  distributing  your  dust,  should  you  fortu¬ 
nately  have  any  to  show,  amongst  the  streets  that  you 
have  invaded  as  a  stranger.  Happily  the  scandal  oi 
pedestrianism  is  in  one  respect  more  hopefully  situated 
than  that  of  scrofula  or  leprosy ;  it  is  not  in  any  case 
written  in  your  face.  The  man  who  is  guilty  of  pedes- 
fcrianism,  on  entering  any  town  whatever,  by  the  simple 


420 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


artifice  of  diving  into  the  crowds  of  those  untainted  bj 
that  gulit,  will  emerge,  for  all  practical  purposes,  washed 
and  re-baptized.  The  landlord,  indeed,  of  any  one  inn 
knows  that  you  did  not  reach  him  on  horseback,  or  in  a 
carriage ;  but  you  may  have  been  visiting  for  weeks  at 
the  house  of  some  distinguished  citizen,  vrkom  it  might 
be  dangerous  to  offend ;  and  you  may  even  be  favorably 
known  at  some  other  inn.  Else,  as  a  general  imputa¬ 
tion,  undoubtedly  pedestrianism,  in  the  estimate  of  Eng¬ 
lish  landlords,  carries  with  it  the  most  awful  shadow  and 
shibboleth  of  the  pariah.  My  Welsh  friend  knew  this, 
and  strongly  urged  me  to  take  advantage  of  the  public 
carriages,  both  on  that  motive  and  others.  A  journey 
of  a  hundred  and  eighty  miles,  as  a  pedestrian,  would 
cost  me  nine  or  ten  days ;  for  which  extent  the  mere 
amount  of  expenses  at  inns  would  more  than  defray  the 
fare  of  the  dearest  carriage.  To  this  there  was  no  sound 
reply,  except  that  corresponding  expenses  would  arise, 
at  any  rate,  on  these  nine  or  ten  days,  wherever  I  might 
be — in  London,  or  on  the  road.  However,  as  it  seemed 
ungracious  to  offer  too  obstinate  a  resistance  to  sugges- 
tions  prompted  so  entirely  by  consideration  for  my  own 
comfort,  I  submitted  to  my  friend’s  plan  in  all  its  details ; 
one  being  that  I  should  go  by  the  Holyhead  Mad,  and 
aot  by  any  of  the  heavy  coaches.  This  stipulation 
pointed  to  a  novel  feature  in  the  machinery  of  travelling 
just  then  emerging.  The  light  coaches  charged  almost 
mail  prices.  But  the  heavy  coaches  were  at  that  time 
beginning  to  assume  a  new  and  dreadful  form.  Loco¬ 
motion  was  so  prodigiously  on  the  increase,  that,  ia 
prder  to  meet  its  demands,  the  old  form  of  coach  (carry 
jag  at  most  six  insides)  was  exchanging  itself,  on 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


421 


great  roads,  for  a  long,  boat-like  vehicle,  very  mack  re¬ 
sembling  our  modern  detestable  omnibus,  but  without 
our  modern  improvements.  This  carriage  was  called  a 
“  long  coach ,”  and  the  passengers,  twelve  or  fourteen  In¬ 
sides,  sat  along  the  sides  ;  and,  as  ventilation  was  littla 
regarded  in  those  days  —  the  very  existence  of  an  at¬ 
mosphere  being  usually  ignored  —  it  followed  that  the 
horrors  of  Governor  Holwell’s  black  cage  at  Calcutta 
was  every  night  repeated,  in  smaller  proportions,  upon 
every  great  English  road.  It  was  finally  agreed  that  I 
should  leave  Oswestry  on  foot,  simply  with  a  view  to 
the  best  enjoyment  of  the  lovely  weather ;  but  that,  a9 
the  mail  passed  through  Oswestry,  my  friend  should  se¬ 
cure  a  place  for  me  the  whole  way  to  London,  so  as  to 
shut  out  competitors. 

The  day  on  which  I  left  Oswestry  (convoyed  for 
nearly  five  miles  by  my  warm  hearted  friend)  was  a  day 
of  golden  sunshine  amongst  the  closing  days  of  Novem¬ 
ber.  As  truly  as  Jessica’s  moonlight  (“  Merchant  of 
Venice  ”),  this  golden  sunshine  might  be  said  to  sleep 
upon  the  woods  and  the  fields  ;  so  awful  was  the  uni  versa  . 
silence,  so  profound  the  death-like  stillness.  It  was  a 
day  belonging  to  a  brief  and  pathetic  season  of  farewell 
summer  resurrection,  which,  under  one  name  or  other,  is 
known  almost  everywhere.  In  North  America  it  is  called 
the  “  Indian  Summer.”  In  North  Germany  and  Midland 
Germany  it  is  called  the  “  Old  Wives’  Summer,”  and 
U  ors  rarely  the  “  Girls’  Summer.”  It  is  that  last  brief 
resurrection  of  summer  in  its  most  brilliant  memorials,  a 
resurrection  that  has  no  root  in  the  past,  nor  steady  hold 
upon  the  future,  like  the  lambent  and  fitful  gleams  from 
in  expiring  lamp,  mimicking  wha*  is  called  the  “  light 


122 


additions  to  the 


Ding  before  death  ”  in  sick  patients,  when  close  upon  theil 
end.  There  is  the  feeling  of  a  conflict  that  has  been 
going  on  between  the  lingering  powers  of  summer  and 
the  strengthening  powers  of  winter,  not  unlike  that 
which  moves  by  antagonist  forces  in  some  deadly  in¬ 
flammation  hurrying  forwards  through  fierce  struggles 
Into  the  final  repose  of  mortification.  For  a  time  the 
equilibrium  has  been  maintained  between  the  hostile 
forces ;  but  at  last  the  antagonism  is  overthrown ;  the 
victory  is  accomplished  for  the  powers  that  fight  on  the 
side  of  death ;  simultaneously  with  the  conflict,  die  pain 
of  conflict  has  departed  :  and  thenceforward  the  gentle 
process  of  collapsing  life,  no  longer  fretted  by  counter¬ 
movements,  slips  away  with  holy  peace  into  the  noise¬ 
less  deeps  of  the  Infinite.  So  sweet,  so  ghostly,  in  its 
soft,  golden  smiles  silent  as  a  dream,  and  quiet  as  the 
dying  trance  of  a  saint,  faded  through  all  its  stages  this 
departing  day,  along  the  whole  length  of  which  I  bade 
farewell  for  many  a  year  to  Wales,  and  farewell  to  sum¬ 
mer.  In  the  very  aspect  and  the  sepulchral  stillness  of 
the  motionless  day,  as  solemnly  it  wore  away  through 
morning,  noontide,  afternoon,  to  meet  the  darkness  that 
was  hurrying  to  swallow  up  its  beauty,  I  had  a  fantastic 
feeling  as  though  I  read  the  very  language  of  resigna¬ 
tion  when  bending  before  some  irresistible  agency. 
And  at  intervals  I  heard  —  in  how  different  a  key  !  — «. 
the  raving,  the  everlasting  uproar  of  that  dreadful  me¬ 
tropolis,  which  at  every  step  was  coming  nearer,  and 
beckoning  (as  it  seemed)  to  myself  for  purposes  as  dim, 
for  issues  as  incalculable,  as  the  path  of  cannon-shots 
tbred  at  random  and  in  darkness. 

It  was  not  late,  but  it  was  at  least  two  hours  afte* 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER, 


423 


aightfall,  when  I  reached  Shrewsbury.  Was  I  not  lia» 
ble  to  the  suspicion  of  pedestrianism  ?  Certainly  I 
was :  but,  even  if  my  criminality  had  been  more  une¬ 
quivocally  attested  than  it  could,  be  under  the  circum¬ 
stances,  still  there  is  a  locus  penitentice  in  such  a  case. 
Surely  a  man  may  repent  of  * any  crime ;  and  therefore 
of  pedestrianism.  I  might  have  erred  ;  and  a  court  oi 
Tpie  poudre  (dusty  foot)  might  have  found  the  evidences 
of  my  crime  on  my  shoes.  Yet  secretly  I  might  bo 
forming  good  resolutions  to  do  so  no  more.  Certainly 
it  looked  like  this,  when  I  announced  myself  as  a  pas¬ 
senger  “  booked  ”  for  that  night’s  mail.  This  character 
at  once  installed  me  as  rightfully  a  guest  of  the  inn, 
however  profligate  a  life  I  might  have  previously  led  as 
a  pedestrian.  Accordingly  I  was  received  with  special 
courtesy;  and  it  so  happened  that  I  was  received  with 
something  even  like  pomp.  Four  wax-lights  carried  be¬ 
fore  me  by  obedient  mutes,  these  were  but  ordinary  hon¬ 
ors,  meant  (as  old  experience  had  instructed  me)  for  the 
first  engineering  step  towards  effecting  a  lodgment  upon 
the  stranger’s  purse.  In  fact  the  wax-lights  are  used  by 
Vinkeepers,  both  abroad  and  at  home,  to  “  try  the  range 
of  their  guns.”  If  the  stranger  submits  quietly,  as  a  good 
anti-pedestrian  ought  surely  to  do,  and  fires  no  counter 
gun  by  way  of  protest,  then  he  is  recognized  at  once  as 
passively  within  range,  and  amenable  to  orders.  I  haue 
always  looked  upon  this  fine  of  five  or  seven  shillings 
(for  wax  that  you  do  n  A  absolutely  need)  as  a  sort  of 
inaugural  honorarium  entrance-money,  what  in  jails 
ased  to  be  known  as  smart  money,  proclaiming  me  to  be 
a  man  comme  ilfaut ;  and  no  toll  in  this  world  of  tolls 
4o  I  pay  so  cheerfully.  This,  meantime,  as  I  have  said, 


424 


ADDITIONS  TO  THK 


Was  too  customary  a  form  to  confer  much  distinctive* 
The  wax-lights,  to  use  the  magnificent  Grecian  phrase 
cTTofATreve,  moved  pompously  before  me,  as  the  holy 
holy  fire,  the  inextinguishable  fire  and  its  golden  hearth, 
moved  before  Caesar  semper  Augustus,  when  he  made 
his  official  or  ceremonial  'avatars.  Yet  still  this  moved 
along  the  ordinary  channels  of  glorification :  it  rolled 
along  ancient  grooves :  I  might  say,  indeed,  like  one  of 
the  twelve  Caesars  when  dying,  Ut  puto,  Deus  jio  (It ’s 
my  private  opinion  that  at  this  very  moment  I  am  turn¬ 
ing  into  a  god),  but  still  the  metamorphosis  was  not 
complete.  That  was  accomplished  when  I  stepped  into 
the  sumptuous  room  allotted  to  me.  It  was  a  ball¬ 
room  *  of  noble  proportions  —  lighted,  if  I  chose  to 
issue  orders,  by  three  gorgeous  chandeliers,  not  basely 
wrapped  up  in  paper,  but  sparkling  through  all  their 
thickets  of  crystal  branches,  and  flashing  back  the  soft 
rays  of  my  tall  waxen  lights.  There  were,  moreover, 
two  orchestras,  which  money  would  have  filled  within 
thirty  minutes.  And,  upon  the  whole,  one  thing  only 
was  wanting  —  viz.,  a  throne — -for  the  completion  of 
my  apotheosis. 

It  might  be  seven  p.  m.  when  first  I  entered  upon  my 
kingdom.  About  three  hours  later  I  rose  from  my 
chair,  and  with  considerable  interest  looked  out  into  the 
night.  For  nearly  two  hours  I  had  heard  fierce  winds 
irising  ;  and  the  whole  atmosphere  had,  by  this  time, 


*  *•  It  was  a  ball-room  :  ”  —  The  explanation  of  the  case  was  simnlv 
that  the  hotel  was  under  some  extensive  process  of  purification,  adorn. 
<oent,  and,  1  believe,  extension:  and  under  the  accident  of  being  my 
lelf  on  that  particular  night  the  sole  visitor  of  the  house,  I  slipp«# 
tnavoidably  into  th^  honors  of  a  semi-regal  reception. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


425 


become  one  vast  laboratory  of  hostile  movements  in  ah 
directions.  Such  a  chaos,  such  a  distracting  wilder¬ 
ness  of  dim  sights,  and  of  those  awful  “  sounds  that 
five  in  darkness  ”  (Wordsworth’s  “  Excursion,”)  never 
had  I  consciously  witnessed.  Rightly,  and  by  a  true  in¬ 
stinct,  had  I  made  my  farewell  adieus  to  summer.  All 
through  the  day,  Wales  and  her  grand  mountain  ranges 
—  Penmaenmawr,  Snowdon,  Cader  Idris  —  had  divide*! 
my  thoughts  with  London.  But  now  rose  London  — 
sole,  dark,  infinite  —  brooding  over  the  whole  capacities 
of  my  heart.  Other  object,  other  thought,  I  could 
not  admit.  Long  before  midnight  the  whole  household 
(with  the  exception  of  a  solitary  waiter)  had  retired  to 
rest.  Two  hours,  at  least,  were  left  to  me,  after  twelve 
o’clock  had  struck,  for  heart-shaking  reflections.  More 
than  ever  I  stood  upon  the  brink  of  a  precipice ;  and 
the  local  circumstances  around  me  deepened  and  inten¬ 
sified  these  reflections,  impressed  upon  them  solemnity 
and  terror,  sometimes  even  horror.  It  is  all  but  incon¬ 
ceivable  to  men  of  unyielding  and  callous  sensibilities, 
how  profoundly  others  find  their  reveries  modified  and 
overruled  by  the  external  characters  of  the  immediate 
scene  around  them.  Many  a  suicide  that  hung  dubi¬ 
ously  in  the  balances  has  been  ratified,  and  carried  into 
summary  effect,  through  the  forlorn,  soul-revolting  as¬ 
pect  of  a  crazy,  dilapidated  home.  Oftentimes,  withou  t 
extravagance,  the  whole  difference  between  a  mind  that 
rpurns  life,  and  the  same  mind  reconciled  to  life,  turns 
upon  the  outside  features  of  that  particular  domestic 
freenery  which  hourly  besieges  the  eyes.  I,  in  this 
Shrewsbury  hotel,  naturally  contemplated  a  group  oi 
objects  tending  to  far  different  results.  And  yet  in 
Rcrne  respects  they  agreed. 


426 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


The  unusual  dimensions  of  the  rooms,  especially  theil 
towering  height,  brought  up  continually  and  obstinately 
through  natural  links  of  associated  feelings  or  images, 
the  mighty  vision  of  London  waiting  for  me  afar  off. 
An  altitude  of  nineteen  or  twenty  feet  showed  itself 
unavoidably  upon  an  exaggerated  scale  in  some  of  tfoa 
smaller  side-rooms  —  meant  probably  for  cards  or  fei? 
refreshments.  This  single  feature  of  the  rooms  —  theil 
unusual  altitude,  and  the  echoing  hollowness  which  had 
become  the  exponent  of  that  altitude — this  one  terrific 
feature  (for  terrific  it  was  in  the  effect),  together  with 
crowding  and  evanescent  images  of  the  flying  feet  that 
so  often  had  spread  gladness  through  these  halls  on  the 
wings  of  youth  and  hope  at  seasons  when  every  room 
rang  with  music  —  all  this,  rising  in  tumultuous  vision, 
whilst  the  dead  hours  of  night  were  stealing  along,  all 
around  me  —  household  and  town  —  sleeping,  and  whilst 
against  the  windows  more  and  more  the  storm  outside 
was  raving,  and  to  all  appearance  endlessly  growing 
threw  me  into  the  deadliest  condition  of  nervous  emotion 
under  contradictory  forces,  high  over  which  predom¬ 
inated  horror  recoiling  from  that  unfathomed  abyss  in 
London  into  which  I  was  now  so  wilfully  precipitating 
myself.  Often  I  looked  out  and  examined  the  night. 
Wild  it  was  beyond  all  description,  and  dark  as  “  the 
insiile  of  a  wolfs  throat.”  But  at  intervals,  when  tL 
wind,  shifting  continually,  swept  in  such  a  direction  aa 
to  clear  away  the  vast  curtain  of  vapor,  the  stars  shori8 
out,  though  with  a  light  unusually  dim  and  distant. 
Btill,  as  I  turned  inwards  to  the  echoing  chambers,  01 
outwards  to  the  wild,  wild  night,  I  saw  London  expand 
V)g  her  visionary  gates  to  receive  me,  like  some  dread 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


42  J 


pill  mouth  of  Acheron  ( Acherontis  avari).  Thou  also, 
Whispering  Gallery !  once  again  in  those  moments  of 
conscious  and  wilful  desolation,  didst  to  my  ear  uttei 
monitorial  sighs.  For  once  again  I  was  preparing  to 
utter  an  irrevocable  word,  to  enter  upon  one  of  those 
fatally  tortuous  paths  of  which  the  windings  can  never 
be  unlinked. 

Such  thoughts,  and  visions  without  number  corres- 
*  ponding  to  them,  were  moving  across  the  camera  obscura 
of  my  fermenting  fancy,  when  suddenly  I  heard  a  sound 
of  wheels ;  which,  however,  soon  died  off  into  some  re¬ 
mote  quarter.  I  guessed  at  the  truth  —  viz.,  that  it  was 
the  Holyhead  Mail  *  wheeling  off  on  its  primary  duty 
of  delivering  its  bags  at  the  post-office.  In  a  few  min¬ 
utes  it  was  announced  as  having  changed  horses ;  and 
off  I  was  to  London. 

THE  PLANS  LAID  FOR  LONDON  LIFE.47 

All  the  mails  in  the  kingdom,  with  one  solitary  ex¬ 
ception  (that  of  Liverpool),  in  those  days,  were  so  ar- 


*  The  Holyhead  Mail,  depending  in  its  earliest  stages  upon  winds 
and  waters  (though  not  upon  tides),  could  not  realize  the  same  ess 
quisite  accuracy  as  mails  that  moved  exclusively  upon  land.  Sixty 
miles  of  watery  transit  between  Dublin  and  Holyhead  were  performed 
with  miraculous  precision.  The  packets  were  intrusted  by  the  General 
Post-office  to  none  but  post-captains,  who  had  commanded  frigates. 
And  the  salaries  were  so  high  as  to  make  these  commands  confessedly 
prizes  in  nautical  life,  and  objects  of  keen  competition.  No  evil  there¬ 
fore,  which  care,  foresight,  and  professional  skill  could  remedy,  was 
Buttered  to  exist.  Yet,  after  all,  baffling  winds  would  now  and  then 
(especially  in  three  or  four  we^ks  after  the  equinox)  make  it  impos> 
tib»«  for  the  very  ablest  man,  under  the  total  defect  of  steam  re¬ 
sources,  to  keep  his  time.  Six  hours,  I  oeiieve,  were  allowed  by  tha 
et-office  for  the  sixty  miiesr  but  at  times  this  must  ha  re  proved  • 
'ary  inadequate  allowance. 


m 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


ranged  as  to  reach  London  early  in  the  morning.  Bo 
tween  the  hours  of  four  and  six  a.  m.,  one  after  the 
other,  according  to  their  station  upon  the  roll,  all  the 
mails  from  the  N[orth]  —  the  E[ast]  —  the  W[estJ 
—  the  S[outh]  —  whence,  according  to  some  curious 
etymologists,  comes  the  magical  word  NEWS — drove 
up  successively  to  the  post-office,  and  rendered  up  theii 
heart-shaking  budgets ;  none  earlier  than  four  o’clock, 
none  later  than  six.  I  am  speaking  of  days  when  all 
things  moved  slowly.  The  condition  of  the  roads  was 
then  such,  that,  in  order  to  face  it,  a  corresponding  build 
of  coaches  hyperbolically  massive  was  rendered  neces¬ 
sary  ;  the  mails  were  upon  principle  made  so  strong  as 
to  be  the  heaviest  of  all  carriages  known  to  the  wit  or 
the  experience  of  man  ;  and  from  these  joint  evils  of 
ponderous  coaches  and  roads  that  were  quagmires,  it 
was  impossible  for  even  the  picked  breed  of  English 
coach-horses,  all  bone  and  blood,  to  carry  forward  their 
huge  tonnage  at  a  greater  rate  than  six-and-a-half  miles 
an  hour.  Consequently,  it  cost  eight-and-twenty  massy 
hours  for  us,  leaving  Shrewsbury  at  two  o’clock  in  the 
dead  of  night,  to  reach  the  General  Post-office,  and 
faithfully  to  deposit  upon  the  threshing-floors  of  Lom¬ 
bard  Street,  all  that  weight  of  love  and  hatred  which 
Ireland  had  found  herself  able  to  muster  through  twenty- 
four  hours  in  the  great  depot  of  Dublin,  by  way  of  dona¬ 
tion  to  England. 

On  reflection,  I  have  done  myself  some  injustice.  Not 
altogether  without  a  plan  had  I  been  from  the  first ;  and 
\n  coming  along  I  had  matured  it.  My  success  in  such 
a  plau  would  turn  upon  my  chance  of  borrowing  on 
personal  security.  £200,  without  counting  any  interest 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATEK. 


429 


&pon  it,  would  subdivide  into  four  sums  of  £50.  Now, 
what  interval  was  it  that  divided  me  from  my  majority ; 
Simply  an  interval  of  four  years.  London,  I  knew  or 
believed,  was  the  dearest  of  all  cities  for  three  items  o i 
expenditure:  (1)  servants’  wages;  (2)  lodgings;4  (3) 
dairy  produce.  In  other  things,  London  was  often 
cheaper  than  most  towns.  Now,  in  a  London  street, 
having  no  pretensions  beyond  those  of  decent  respecta¬ 
bility,  it  has  always  been  possible  for  the  last  half-cen¬ 
tury  to  obtain  two  furnished  rooms  at  a  weekly  cost  of 
half-a-guinea.  This  sum  (or  say  £25)  deducted,  would 
leave  me  annually  about  the  same  sum  for  my  other  ex¬ 
penses.  Too  certainly  I  knew  that  this  would  suffice. 
If,  therefore,  I  could  obtain  the  £200,  my  plan  was  to 
withdraw  from  the  knowledge  of  all  my  connections 
until  I  should  become  mei  juris  by  course  of  law.  In 
such  a  case,  it  is  true  that  I  must  have  waived  all  the 
advantages,  fancied  or  real,  small  or  great,  from  res¬ 
idence  at  a  university.  But,  as  in  fact  I  never  drew 
the  slightest  advantage  or  emolument  from  any  univer¬ 
sity,  my  scheme  when  realized  would  have  landed  me  in 
the  same  point  which  finally  I  attained  by  its  failure 
The  plan  was  simple  enough,  but  it  rested  on  the  as¬ 
sumption  that  I  could  melt  the  obduracy  of  money¬ 
lenders.  On  this  point  I  had  both  hopes  and  fears. 


*  Not  universally.  Glasgow,  if  you  travel  from  Hammerfest  south¬ 
wards  (that  is  from  the  no^hermost  point  of  Norway,  or  Swedish 
Lapland,  traversing  all  latitudes  of  Europe  to  Gibraltar  on  the  west, 
or  Naples  on  the  east),  is  the  one  dearest  place  for  lodgings  known 
to  man.  A  decent  lodging  for  a  single  person,  in  Edinbrjgh  which 
could  be  had  readily  for  half-a  guinea  a-weex,  will  in  Glasgow  cost 
ft  guinea.  Glasgow,  except  as  to  servants,  is  a  dearer  abode  a 
hex  •tou 


430 


ADDITIONS  TO  THR 


But  more  irritating  than  either  was  the  delay ,  which 
eventually  I  came  to  recognize  as  an  essential  element 
tn  the  policy  of  all  money-lenders :  in  that  way  only 
can  they  raise  up  such  claims  on  behalf  of  their  law- 
Bgents  as  may  be  fitted  for  sustaining  their  zeal. 

•  ••••••  •  •  •  • 

I  lost  no  time  in  opening  the  business  which  had 
brought  me  to  London.  By  ten  a.  m.,  an  hour  when  all 
men  of  business  are  presumed  to  be  at  their  posts,  per¬ 
sonally  or  by  proxy,  I  presented  myself  at  the  money¬ 
lender’s  office.  My  name  was  already  known  there : 
for  I  had,  by  letters  from  Wales,  containing  very  plain 
and  very  accurate  statements  of  my  position  in  life  and 
my  pecuniary  expectations  (some  of  which  statements  it 
afterwards  appeared  that  he  had  personally  investigated 
and  verified),  endeavored  to  win  his  favorable  attention. 
The  money-lender,  as  it  turned  out,  had  one  fixed  rule 
of  action.  He  never  granted  a  personal  interview  to 
any  man  ;  no,  not  to  the  most  beloved  of  his  clients. 
One  and  all  —  myself,  therefore,  among  the  crowd  — 
he  referred  for  information,  and  for  the  means  of  prose¬ 
cuting  any  kind  of  negotiation,  to  an  attorney,  who 
called  himself,  on  most  days  of  the  week,  by  the  name 
of  B  run  ell,  but  occasionally  (might  it  perhaps  be  on 
red-letter  days  ?)  by  the  more  common  name  of  Brown. 
Mr.  Brunell-Brown,  or  Brown-Brunell,  had  located  his 
hearth  (if  ever  he  had  possessed  one),  and  his  household 
gods  (when  they  were  not  in  the  custody  of  the  sheriff,) 
in  Greek  Street,  Soho.  The  house  was  not  in  itself, 
supposing  that  its  face  had  been  washed  now  and  then, 
Bt  all  disrespectable.  But  it  wore  an  unhappy  counte- 
t&nce  of  gloom  and  unsocial  fretfulness,  due  in  reality 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OI'IUM-EATER. 


131 


so  the  long  neglect  of  painting,  cleansing,  and  in  some 
instances  of  repairing.  There  were,  however  no  frac¬ 
tured  panes  of  glass  in  the  windows ;  and  the  deep  si¬ 
lence  which  invested  the  house,  not  only  from  the 
absence  of  all  visitors,  but  also  of  those  common 
household  functionaries,  bakers,  butchers,  beer-carriers, 
sufficiently  accounted  for  the  desolation,  by  suggesting 
an  excuse  not  strictly  true  —  viz.,  that  it  might  be  ten¬ 
ant!  ess.  The  house  had  already  tenants  through  the 
day,  though  of  a  noiseless  order,  and  was  destined  soon 
to  increase  them.  Mr.  Brown-Brunell,  after  reconnoi¬ 
tring  me  through  a  narrow,  side-window  (such  as  is 
often  attached  to  front-doors  in  London),  admitted  me 
cheerfully,  and  conducted  me,  as  an  honored  guest,  to 
his  private  officina  diplomatum  at  the  back  of  the  house- 
From  the  expression  of  his  face,  but  much  more  from 
the  contradictory  and  self-counteracting  play  of  his  fea¬ 
tures,  you  gathered  in  a  moment  that  he  was  a  man  who 
had  much  to  conceal,  and  much,  perhaps,  that  he  would 
gladly  forget.  His  eye  expressed  wariness  against  sur¬ 
prise,  and  passed  in  a  moment  into  irrepressible  glances 
of  suspicion  and  alarm.  No  smile  that  ever  his  face 
naturally  assumed,  but  was  pulled  short  up  by  some 
freezing  counteraction,  or  was  chased  by  some  close-fol¬ 
lowing  expression  of  sadness.  One  feature  there  was 
of  relenting  goodness  and  nobleness  in  Mr.  Brunei  l’s 
character,  to  which  it  was  that  subsequently  I  myself 
was  most  profoundly  indebted  for  an  asylum  that  saved 
my  life.  He  had  the  deepest,  the  most  liberal,  and  un¬ 
affected  love  of  knowledge,  but,  above  all,  of  that  spe¬ 
cific  knowledge  which  we  call  literature.  His  own 
jtormy  (and  no  douDt  oftentimes  disgraceful)  career  in 


432 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


life,  that  had  entangled  him  in  perpetual  feuds  with  his 
fellow-msn,  he  ascribed,  with  bitter  imprecations,  to  tho 
Budden  interruption  of  his  studies  consequent  upon  his 
father’s  violent  death,  and  to  the  necessity  which  threw 
him,  at  a  boyish  age,  upon  a  professional  life  in  the 
lower  branches  of  law  —  threw  him,  therefore,  upon 
daily  temptations,  by  surrounding  him  with  opportune 
ties  for  taking  advantages  not  strictly  honorable,  before 
he  had  formed  any  fixed  principles  at  all.  From  the 
very  first,  Mr.  Brunell  had  entered  zealously  into  such 
conversations  with  myself  as  either  gave  openings  for 
reviving  his  own  delightful  remembrances  of  classic 
authors,  or  brought  up  sometimes  doubts  for  solution., 
sometimes  perplexities  and  cases  of  intricate  construc¬ 
tion  for  illustration  and  disentanglement.  Hunger-bit¬ 
ten  as  the  house  and  the  household  genius  seemed,  wear¬ 
ing  the  legend  of  Famine  upon  every  mantelpiece  or 
fc'  coigne  of  vantage,”  and  vehemently  protesting,  as  it 
must  have  done  through  all  its  echoes,  against  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  supernumerary  mouths,  nevertheless  there 
was  (and,  I  suppose,  of  necessity)  a  clerk,  who  bore  the 
name  of  Pyment,  or  Pyemont,  then  first  of  all,  then  last 
of  all,  made  known  to  me  as  a  possible  surname.  Mr. 
Pyment  had  no  alias  —  or  not  to  my  knowledge  —  ex¬ 
cept,  indeed,  in  the  vituperative  vocabulary  of  Mr. 
Brunell,  in  which  most  variegated  nomenclature  he  bore 
laany  scores  of  opprobrious  names,  having  no  reference 
whatever  to  any  real  habits  of  the  man,  good  or  bad. 
At  two  rooms’  distance,  Mr.  Brunell  always  assumed  a 
minute  and  circumstantial  knowledge  of  what  Pyment 
Was  diing  then,  and  what  he  was  going  to  do  next.  Ah 
which  Pyment  gave  himself  little  trouble  to  answer,  ud 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


453 


less  it  happened  (as  now  and  then  it  did)  that  he  could 
io  so  without  ludicrous  effect.  What  made  the  neces¬ 
sity  for  Pyment  was  the  continual  call  for  “  an  appear¬ 
ance  ”  to  be  put  in  at  some  of  the  subordinate  courts  in 
Westminster — -courts  of  conscience,  sheriff  courts,  &c. 
But  it  happens  often  that  he  who  is  most  indispensable, 
and  gets  through  most  work  at  one  hour,  becomes  a  use’ 
less  burden  at  another  ;  as  the  hardest  working  reaper 
seems,  in  the  eyes  of  an  ignoramus,  on  a  wet,  wintry 
day,  to  be  a  luxurious  idler.  Of  these  ups  and  downs 
in  Pyment’ s  working  life,  Mr.  Brunell  made  a  most  cyn¬ 
ical  use ;  making  out  that  Pyment  not  only  did  nothing, 
but  also  that  he  created  much  work  for  the  afflicted 
Brunell.  However,  it  happened  occasionally  that  the 
truth  vindicated  itself,  by  making  a  call  upon  Pyment’s 
physics  —  aggressive  or  defensive  —  that  needed  an  in¬ 
stant  attention.  “  Pyment,  I  say  ;  this  way,  Pyment  — 
you  ’re  wanted,  Pyment.”  In  fact,  both  were  big.  hulk¬ 
ing  men,  and  had  need  to  be  so ;  for  sometimes,  whether 
with  good  reason  or  none,  clients  at  the  end  of  a  losing 
suit,  or  of  a  suit  nominally  gained,  but  unexpectedly 
laden  with  heavy  expenses,  became  refractory,  showed 
fight,  and  gave  Pyment  reason  for  saying  that  at  least 
on  this  day  he  had  earned  his  salary  by  serving  an  eject¬ 
ment  on  a  client  whom  on  any  other  plan  it  might  have 
been  hard  to  settle  with. 

But  I  am  anticipating.  I  go  back,  therefore,  for 
h  few  explanatory  words,  to  the  day  of  my  arrival  in 
London.  How  beneficial  to  me  would  a  little  candor 
lave  been  at  that  early  period  !  If  (which  was  the  sim¬ 
ple  truth,  known  to  all  parties  but  myself)  I  had  been 

told  that  nothing  would  be  brought  to  a  close  in  lesa 
28 


434 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


,han  six  months,  even  assuming  the  ultimate  adoption.  0/ 
my  proposals,  I  should  from  the  first  have  dismissed  all 
hopes  of  this  nature,  as  being  unsuited  to  the  practica¬ 
bilities  of  my  situation.  It  will  be  seen  further  on,  that 
there  was  a  real  and  sincere  intention  of  advancing  the 
money  wanted.  But  it  was  then  too  late.  And  univer¬ 
sally  I  believe  myself  entitled  to  say,  that  even  honor¬ 
able  lawyers  will  not  in  a  case  of  this  nature  move  at  a 
faster  pace  :  they  will  all  alike  loiter  upon  varied  alle¬ 
gations  through  six  months  ;  and  for  this  reason,  that 
any  shorter  period,  they  fancy,  will  hardly  seem  to  jus¬ 
tify,  in  the  eyes  of  their  client,  the  sum  which  they  find 
themselves  entitled  to  charge  for  their  trouble  and  their 
preliminary  correspondence.  How  much  better  for  both 
sides,  and  more  honorable,  as  more  frank  and  free  from 
disguises,  that  the  client  should  say,  “  Raise  this  sum  ” 
(of  suppose,  £400)  “  in  three  weeks,  which  can  be  done, 
if  it  can  be  done  in  three  years,  and  here  is  a  bonus  of 
£100.  Delay  for  two  months,  and  I  decline  the  whole 
transaction.”  Treated  with  that  sort  of  openness,  how 
much  bodily  suffering  of  an  extreme  order,  and  how 
much  of  the  sickness  from  hope  deferred,  should  I  have 
escaped !  Whereas,  under  the  system  (pursued  with  me 
as  with  all  clients)  of  continually  refreshing  my  hopes 
with  new  delusions,  whiling  me  on  with  pretended 
preparation  of  deeds,  and  extorting  from  me,  out  of 
every  little  remittance  I  received  from  old  family  friends 
casually  met  in  London,  as  much  as  possible  for  the 
purchase  of  imaginary  stamps,  the  result  was,  that  I  my¬ 
self  was  brought  to  the  brink  of  destruction  through 
pure  inanition ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  those  con 
serned  in  these  deceptions  gained  nothing  that  migh 


CONFESSIONS  OP’  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


43S 


Hot  have  been  gained  honorably  and  rightfully  under  a 
jystem  of  plain  dealing.  As  it  was,  subject  to  these 
eternal  deceptions,  I  continued  for  seven  or  eight  weeks’ 
to  live  most  parsimoniously  in  lodgings.  These  lodg¬ 
ings,  though  barely  decent  in  my  eyes,  ran  away  with  at 
least  two  thirds  of  my  remaining  guineas.  At  length, 
whilst  it  was  yet  possible  to  reserve  a  solitary  half* 
guinea  towards  the  more  urgent  interest  of  finding  daily 
food,  I  gave  up  my  rooms  ;  and,  stating  exactly  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  in  which  I  stood,  requested  permission  of 
Mr.  Brunell  to  make  use  of  his  large  house  as  a  nightly 
asylum  from  the  open  air.  Parliament  had  not  then 
made  it  a  crime,  next  door  to  a  felony,  for  a  man  to 
Bleep  out-of-doors  (as  some  twenty  years  later  was  done 
by  our  benign  legislators)  ;  as  yet  that  was  no  crime. 
By  the  law  I  came  to  know  sin  ;  and  looking  back  to 
the  Cambrian  hills  from  distant  years,  discovered  to  my 
surprise  what  a  parliamentary  wretch  I  had  been  in 
elder  days,  when  I  slept  amengst  cows  on  the  open  liill- 
eides.  Lawful  as  yet  this  was  ;  but  not,  therefore,  less 
full  of  misery.  Naturally,  then,  I  was  delighted  when 
Mr.  Brunell  not  only  most  readily  assented  to  my  re¬ 
quest,  but  begged  of  me  to  come  that  very  night,  and 
turn  the  house  to  account  as  fully  as  I  possibly  could. 
The  cheerfulness  of  such  a  concession  brought  with  it 
one  drawback.  I  now  regretted  that  I  had  not,  at  a 
much  earlier  period,  applied  for  this  liberty ;  since  I 
might  thus  have  saved  a  considerable  fund  of  guineas, 
ipplicable,  of  course,  to  all  urgent  necessities,  but  at  thi<» 
particular  moment  to  one  of  clamorous  urgency  —  viz., 
ihe  purchase  of  blankets.  O  ancient  women,  daughter* 
*f  toil  and  suffering,  amongst  all  the  hardships  and  bit 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


436 

ter  inheritances  of  flesh  that  ye  are  called  upon  to  face, 
not  one  * — not  even  hunger  —  seems  in  my  eyes  compar¬ 
able  to  that  of  nightly  cold.  To  seek  a  refuge  from 
cold  in  bed,  and  then,  from  the  thin,  gauzy  texture  of 
the  miserable,  worn-out  blankets,  “  not  to  sleep  a  wink,” 
as  Wordsworth  records  of  poor  old  women  in  Dorset¬ 
shire,  where  coals,  from  local  causes,  were  at  the  very 
dearest  —  what  a  terrific  enemy  was  that  for  poor  old 
grandmothers  to  face  in  fight !  How  feelingly  I  learned 
at  this  time,  as  heretofore  I  had  learned  on  the  wild  hill¬ 
sides  in  Wales,  what  an  unspeakable  blessing  is  that  of 
warmth  !  A  more  killing  curse  there  does  not  exist  for 
man  or  woman,  than  that  bitter  combat  between  the 
weariness  that  prompts  sleep,  and  the  keen,  searching 
cold  that  forces  you  from  the  first  access  of  sleep  to 
start  up  horror-stricken,  and  to  seek  warmth  vainly  in 
renewed  exercise,  though  long  since  fainting  under 
fatigue.  However,  even  without  blankets,  it  was  a  fina 
thing  to  have  an  asylum  from  the  opeE  air  ;  and  to  be 
assured  of  this  asylum  as  long  as  I  was  likely  fcs 
wmt  it. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


4  SI 


BARBARA  LEWTHWAITE. 48 

This  girl  was  a  person  of  some  poetic  distinct ioiij 
being  (unconsciously  to  herself)  the  chief  speaker  in 
a  little  pastoral  poem  of  Wordsworth's.  That  she 
was  really  beautiful,  and  not  merely  so  described  by 
me  for  the  sake  of  improving  the  picturesque  effect, 
the  reader  will  judge  from  this  line  in  the  poem,  writ¬ 
ten,  perhaps,  ten  years  earlier,  when  Barbara  might 
be  six  years  old  : 

“  ’T  was  little  Barbara  Lewthwaite,  a  child  of  beauty  rare  !  ’ 

This,  coming  from  William  Wordsworth,  both  a  fas¬ 
tidious  judge  and  a  truth-speaker  of  the  severest 
literality,  argues  some  real  pretensions  to  beauty,  or 
real  at  that  time.  But  it  is  notorious  that,  in  the 
anthologies  of  earth  through  all  her  zones,  one  flower 
beyond  every  other  is  liable  to  change,  which  flower 
is  the  countenance  of  woman.  Whether  in  his  fine 
stanzas  upon  “  Mutability/7  where  the  most  pathetic 
instances  of  this  earthly  doom  are  solemnly  arrayed, 
Spenser  has  dwelt  sufficiently  upon  this  the  saddest 
of  all,  I  do  not  remember. 

Already  Barbara  Lewthwaite  had  contributed  tc 
the  composition  of  two  impressive  pictures  —  first, 
in  her  infancy,  with  her  pet  lamb,  under  the  evening 
shadows  of  the  mighty  Fairfield  ;  secondly,  in  her 
girlhood,  with  the  turbaned  Malay,  and  the  little 
•sottage  child.  But,  subsequently,  when  a  young 
woman,  she  entered  unconsciously  into  the  composi 
den  of  another  picture  even  more  rememberable4 


438 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


suggesting  great  names,  connected  with  the  greatest 
of  themes  ;  the  names  being  those  of  Plato,  and,  in 
this  instance,  at  least,  of  a  mightier  than  Plato, 
nanmly,  William  Wordsworth  ;  and  the  theme  con¬ 
cerned  being  that  problem  which,  measured  by  ita 
interest  to  man,  by  its  dependencies,  by  the  infinite 
jewel  staked  upon  the  verdict,  we  should  all  con¬ 
fess  to  be  the  most  solemn  and  heart-shaking  that 
is  hung  out  by  golden  chains  from  the  heaven  of 
heavens  to  human  investigation,  namely  —  Is  the 
spirit  of  man  numbered  amongst  things  naturally 
perishable  ?  The  doctrine  of  our  own  Dodwell  (a 
most  orthodox  man),  was,  that  naturally  and  per  se 
it  was  perishable,  but  that  by  supernatural  endow¬ 
ment  it  was  made  immortal.  Apparently  the  ancient 
oracles  of  the  Hebrew  literature  had  all  and  every¬ 
where  assumed  the  soul’s  natural  mortality.  The 
single  passage  in  Job,  that  seemed  to  look  in  the 
counter  direction,  has  long  since  received  an  inter¬ 
pretation  painfully  alien  from  such  a  meaning  ;  not 
to  mention  that  the  same  objection  would  apply  to 
this  passage,  if  read  into  a  Christian  sense,  as  applies 
10  the  ridiculous  interpolation  in  Josephus  describing 
Christ's  personal  appearance,  namely  —  Once  sup¬ 
pose  it  genuine,  and  why  were  there  not  myriads  of 
other  passages  in  the  same  key  ?  Imagine,  for  a 
moment,  the  writer  so  penetrated  with  premature 
Christian  views,  by  what  inexplicable  rigor  of  absti¬ 
nence  had  he  forborne  to  meet  ten  thousand  calls,  at 
other  turns  of  his  work,  for  similar  utterances  of 
Christian  sentiment  ?  It  must  not  be  supposed  that 
the  objections  to  this  Christian  interpretation  of  Joli 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER 


439 


rest  solely  with  German  scholars.  Coleridge,  one 
of  the  most  devout  and  evangelical  amongst  modern 
theologians,  took  the  same  view ;  and  has  expressed 
it  with  decision.  But  Job  is  of  slight  importance  in 
comparison  with  Moses.  Now,  Warburton,  in  his 
well-known  argument,  held,  not  only  that  Moses 
did  (as  a  fact)  assume  the  mortality  of  the  soul,  but 
that,  as  a  necessity,  he  did  so  since  upon  this  assump¬ 
tion  rests  the  weightiest  argument  for  his  own  divine 
mission.  That  Moses  could  dispense  with  a  support 
which  Warburton  fancied  all  other  legislators  had 
needed  and  postulated,  argued,  in  the  bishop’s  opin¬ 
ion,  a  vicarious  support  —  a  secret  and  divine  sup¬ 
port.  This  extreme  view  will  be  rejected,  perhaps, 
by  most  people.  But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  very 
existence  of  such  a  sect  as  the  Sadducees  proves 
sufficiently  that  no  positive  affirmation  of  the  soul’s 
immortality  could  have  been  accredited  amongst  the 
Hebrew  nation  as  a  Mosaic  doctrine.  The  rise  of  a 
counter  sect,  the  Pharisees,  occurred  in  later  days, 
clearly  under  a  principle  of  “  development  ”  applied 
to  old  traditions  current  among  the  Jews.  It  was 
not  alleged  as  a  Mosaic  doctrine,  but  as  something 
deducible  from  traditions  countenanced  by  Moses. 

From  Hebrew  literature,  therefore,  no  help  is  ta 
be  looked  for  on  this  great  question.  Pagan  liters 
ture  first  of  all  furnishes  any  response  upon  it  favor 
able  to  human  yearnings.  But,  unhappily,  the  main 
argument  upon  which  the  sophist  in  the  Phcedo  relies, 
,s  a  pure  scholastic  conundrum,  baseless  and  puerile, 
l  he  homogeneity  of  human  consciousness,  upon  which 
sa  made  to  rest  its  indestructibility,  is  not  established 


440 


ADDITIONS  TO  TH1. 


ur  made  probable  by  any  plausible  logic.  If  wa 
should  figure  to  ourselves  some  mighty  ange*  mount¬ 
ing  guard  upon  human  interests  twenty-three  centu¬ 
ries  ago,  this  tutelary  spirit  would  have  smiled  deri* 
sivel}'  upon  the  advent  and  the  departure  of  Plato. 
At  length,  once  again,  after  many  centuries,  was 
heard  the  clarion  of  immortality  —  not  as  of  any  pre¬ 
ternatural  gift,  but  as  a  natural  prerogative  of  the 
human  spirit.  This  time  the  angel  would  have  paused 
and  hearkened.  The  auguries  for  immortality,  which 
Wordsworth  drew  from  indications  running  along 
the  line  of  daily  human  experience,  were  two.  The 
first  was  involved  in  the  exquisite  little  poem  of 
“  We  are  Seven.  ”  That  authentic  voice,  said  Words¬ 
worth,  which  affirmed  life  as  a  necessity  inalienable 
from  man’s  consciousness,  was  a  revelation  through 
the  lips  of  childhood.  Life  in  its  torrent  fulness— - 
that  is,  life  in  its  earliest  stage  —  affirmed  itself; 
whereas  the  voice  which  whispered  doubts  was  an 
adventitious  and  secondary  voice  consequent  upon 
an  earthly  experience.  The  child  in  this  little  poem 
is  unable  to  admit  the  thought  of  death,  though,  in 
compliance  with  custom,  she  uses  the  word. 

“  The  first  that  died  was  little  Jane  ; 

In  bed  she  moaning  lay  ; 

Till  God  released  her  from  her  pain. 

And  then  she  went  away.’1 

The  graves  of  her  brother  and  sister  she  is  so  fai 
from  regarding  as  any  argument  of  their  having  died, 
that  she  supposes  the  stranger  simply  to  doubt  hei 
itatement,  and  she  reiterates  her  assertion  of  theis 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


441 


graves  as  lying  in  the  churchyard,  in  order  to  prove 
that  they  were  living : 

“  ‘  Their  graves  are  green,  they  may  be  seen,* 

The  little  maid  replied, 

*  Twelve  steps  or  more  from  my  mother’s  doors 
And  they  are  side  by  side. 

And  often  after  sunset,  sir, 

When  it  is  light  and  fair, 

1  take  my  little  porringer, 

And  eat  my  supper  there. 

My  stockings  there  I  often  knit, 

My  kerchief  there  I  hem  ; 

And  there  upon  their  graves  I  sit  — 

I  sit,  and  sing  to  them.’  ” 

The  other  argument  was  developed  in  the  sublime 
“  Ode  upon  the  Intimations  of  Immortality,”  &c 
Man  in  his  infancy  stood  nearest  (so  much  was  mat¬ 
ter  of  fact)  to  the  unseen  world  of  the  Infinite.  What 
voices  he  heard  most  frequently,  murmuring  through 
the  cells  of  his  infantine  brain,  were  echoes  of  the 
great  realities  which,  as  a  new-born  infant,  he  had 
just  quitted.  Hanging  upon  his  mother’s  breast,  he 
heard  dim  prolongations  of  a  music  which  belonged 
to  a  life  ever  more  and  more  receding  into  a  distance 
buried  in  clouds  and  vapors.  Man’s  orient,  in  which 
e  the  fountains  of  the  dawn,  must  be  sought  for  in 
tnat  Eden  of  infanev  which  first  received  him  as  a 

V 

traveller  emerging  from  a  world  now  daily  becoming 
more  distant.  And  it  is  a  great  argument  of  the 
divine  splendor  investing  man’s  natural  home,  that 
the  heavenly  lights  which  burned  in  his  morning 
grow  fainter  and  fainter  as  he  11  travels  further  Irons 
the  East.” 


442 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


The  little  Carnarvonshire  child  in  “  We  are  Seven/' 
svho  is  represented  as  repelling  the  idea  of  death 
under  an  absolute  inability  to  receive  it,  had  com¬ 
pleted  her  eighth  year.  But  this  might  be  an  ambi* 
tious  exaggeration,  such  as  aspiring  female  children 
are  generally  disposed  to  practise.  It  is  more  prol> 
able  that  she  might  be  in  the  currency  of  her  eighth 
year.  Naturally  we  must  not  exact  from  Words¬ 
worth  any  pedantic  rigor  of  accuracy  in  such  a  case  ; 
but  assuredly  we  have  a  right  to  presume  that  his 
principle,  if  tenable  at  all,  must  apply  to  all  children 
below  the  age  of  five.  However,  I  will  say  four. 
In  that  case  the  following  anecdote  seems  to  impeach 
the  philosophic  truth  of  this  doctrine.  I  give  the 
memorandum  as  it  was  drawn  up  by  myself  at  the 
time  : 

My  second  child,  but  eldest  daughter,  little  M - , 

is  between  two  and  three  weeks  less  than  two  years 
old  ;  and  from  the  day  of  her  birth  she  has  been  uni¬ 
formly  attended  by  Barbara  Lewthwaite.  We  are 
now  in  the  first  days  of  June  ;  but,  about  three  weeks 
since,  consequently  in  the  earlier  half  of  May,  some 

one  of  our  neighbors  gave  to  M - a  little  bird.  I 

am  no  great  ornithologist.  “  Perhaps  only  a  tenth- 
rate  one/'  says  some  too  flattering  reader.  0  dear, 
no,  nothing  near  it ;  I  fear,  no  more  than  a  five  hun¬ 
dred  and  tenth  rater.  Consequently,  I  cannot  orni- 
thologically  describe  or  classify  the  lird.  But  I 
believe  that  it  belonged  to  the  family  of  finches  — 
either  a  goldfinch,  bullfinch,  or  at  least  something 
ending  in  inch.  The  present  was  less  splendid  than  at 
first  it  eeemed.  For  the  bird  was  wounded  ;  though 


CONFESSIONS  OF  aN  OPIUM-EATER. 


443 


Hot  in  a  way  that  made  the  wound  apparent ;  and 
too  sensibly  as  the  evening  wore  away  it  drooped. 
None  of  us  knew  what  medical  treatment  to  suggest ; 
and  all  that,  occurred  was  to  place  it  with  free  access 
to  bird-seed  and  water.  At  length  sunset  anived, 

which  was  the  signal  for  M - ’s  departure  to  bed. 

She  came,  therefore,  as  usual  to  me,  threw  her  arms 
round  my  neck,  and  went  through  her  ordinary  rou¬ 
tine  of  prayers ;  namely,  first,  the  Lord’s  Prayer,  and, 
finally,  the  four  following  lines  (a  Roman  Catholic 
bequest  to  the  children  of  Northern  England)  : 

“  Holy  *  Jesus,  meek  and  mild. 

Look  on  me,  a  little  child  ; 

Pity  my  simplicity  ; 

Grant  that  I  may  come  to  thee.” 

M—  — ,  as  she  was  moving  off  to  bed,  whispered  to 
me  that  I  was  to  “mend”  the  bird  with  “  yoddo 
num.”  Having  always  seen  me  taking  laudanum, 
and  for  the  purpose  (as  she  was  told)  of  growing 
better  in  health,  reasonably  it  struck  her  that  the 
little  bird  would  improve  under  the  same  regimen. 
For  her  satisfaction,  I  placed  a  little  diluted  lauda¬ 
num  near  to  the  bird  ;  and  she  then  departed  to  bed, 
though  with  uneasy  looks  reverting  to  her  sick  little 
pet.  Occupied  with  some  point  of  study,  it  hap¬ 
pened  that  I  sat  up  through  the  whole  night ;  and 


*  “  Holy  Jesus :  ”  — Tms  was  a  very  judicious  correction  intro¬ 
duced  by  Wordsworth.  Originally  the  traditional  line  had  stood, 
Gentle  Jesus,  meek  and  mild.''  But  Wordsworth,  offended  b^ 
the  idle  iteration  of  one  idea  ’n  the  words,  gentle,  meek,  mill 
corrected  the  text  into  Holy. 


444 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


long  before  seven  o’clock  in  the  morning  she  had 
summoned  Barbara  to  dress  her,  and  soon  I  heard 
the  impatient  little  foot  descending  the  stairs  to  my 
study.  I  had  such  a  Jesuitical  bulletin  ready,  by 
way  of  a  report  upon  the  bird’s  health,  as  might  not 
seem  absolutely  despairing,  though  not  too  danger¬ 
ously  sanguine.  And,  as  the  morning  was  one  of 
heavenly  splendor,  I  proposed  that  we  should  im¬ 
prove  the  bird’s  chances  by  taking  it  out-of-doors 
into  the  little  orchard  at  the  foot  of  Fairfield  —  our 
loftiest  Grasmere  mountain.  Thither  moved  at  once 

Barbara  Lewth waite,  little  M - ,  myself,  and  the 

poor  languishing  bird.  By  that  time  in  May,  in  any 
far  southern  county,  perhaps  the  birds  would  be 
ceasing  to  sing ;  but  not  so  with  us  dilatory  people 
in  Westmoreland.  Suddenly,  as  we  all  stood  around 
the  little  perch  on  which  the  bird  rested,  one  thrill¬ 
ing  song,  louder  than  the  rest,  arose  from  a  neigh¬ 
boring  hedge.  Immediately  the  bird’s  eye,  previ¬ 
ously  dull,  kindled  into  momentary  fire  ;  the  bird 
rose  on  its  perch,  struggled  for  an  instant,  seemed 
to  be  expanding  its  wings,  made  one  aspiring  move¬ 
ment  upwards,  in  doing  so  fell  back,  and  in  another 
moment  was  dead.  Too  certainly  and  apparently  all 
these  transitions  symbolically  interpreted  themselves, 
and  to  all  of  us  alike  ;  the  proof  of  which  was  —  that 
man,  woman,  and  child  spontaneously  shed  tears  ;  a 
weakness,  perhaps,  but  more  natural  under  the  regu¬ 
lar  processional  evolution  of  the  scenical  stages,  than 
»shen  simply  read  as  a  narrative  ;  for  too  evident  it 
was,  to  one  and  all  of  us,  without  needing  to  com> 
uunioate  by  words,  what  vision  had  revealed  itseli 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER.  445 

to  all  alike —  to  the  child  under  two  years  cld,  not 
less  than  to  the  adults  ;  too  evident  it  was,  that,  or. 
this  magnificent  May  morning,  there  had  been  exhib 
ited,  as  on  the  stage  of  a  theatre — there  had  passed 
before  the  eyes  of  us  all — passed,  and  was  finished — - 
the  everlasting  mystery  of  death  !  It  seemed  to  me 

that  little  M - ,  by  her  sudden  burst  of  tears,  must 

have  read  this  saddest  of  truths  —  must  have  felt 
that  the  bird’s  fate  was  sealed  —  not  less  clearly 
than  Barbara  or  myself. 


THE  DAUGHTER  OE  LEBANON. 

AN  OPIUM  DREAM. 

Prefatory  Note.  —  By  accident,  a  considerable  part  of  the 
Confessions  (all,  in  short,  except  the  Dreams)  had  originally 
been  written  hastily;  and,  from  various  causes,  had  never  received 
any  strict  revision,  or,  virtually,  so  much  as  an  ordinary  verbal 
correction.  But  a  great  deal  more  was  wanted  than  this.  The 
main  narrative  should  naturally  have  moved  through  a  succession 
of  secondary  incidents  ;  and,  with  leisure  for  recalling  these,  it 
might  have  been  greatly  inspirited.  Wanting  all  opportunity  for 
Buch  advantages,  this  narrative  had  been  needlessly  impoverished. 
And  thus  it  had  happened  that  not  so  properly  correction  and 
retrenchment  were  called  for,  as  integration  of  what  had  been  left 
Imperfect,  or  amplification  of  what,  from  the  first,  had  been  insuf 
ficiently  expanded.  *  *  *  *  I  had  relied  upon  a  crowning 

grace,  which  I  had  reserved  fo~  the  final  pages  of  this  volume,  in 
ft  succession  of  some  twenty  or  twenty-five  dreams  and  noon-day 
visions,  which  had  arisen  under  the  latter  stages  of  opium  influ¬ 
ence.  These  have  disappeared  •  some  under  circumstances  which 
ftllow  me  a  reasonable  prospect  of  recovering  them ;  some  unao 
eountably  ;  and  some  dishonorably.  Five  or  six  I  believe,  wei  g 


f4o 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


turned  in  a  sudden  conflagration  which  arose  from  the  spark  of  a 
candle  falling  unobserved  amongst  a  very  large  pile  of  papers  in 
a  bedroom,  when  I  was  alone  and  reading.  Falling  not  on}  but 
amongst  and  within  the  papers,  the  fire  would  soon  ha^e  been 
ahead  of  conflict ;  and,  by  communicating  with  the  slight  wood-work 
and  draperies  of  a  bed,  it  would  have  immediately  enveloped  the 
raths  of  a  ceiling  overhead,  and  thus  the  house,  far  from  fire-engines, 
would  have  been  burned  down  in  half-an-hour.  My  attention  was 
first  drawn  by  a  sudden  light  upon  my  book  ;  and  the  whole  dif¬ 
ference  between  a  total  destruction  of  the  premises  and  a  trivial 
loss  (from  books  charred)  of  five  guineas,  was  due  to  a  large  Span¬ 
ish  cloak.  This,  thrown  over,  and  then  drawn  down  tightly,  by 
the  aid  of  one  sole  person,  somewhat  agitated,  but  retaining  her 
presence  of  mind,  eftectually  extinguished  the  fire.  Amongst  the 
papers  burned  partially,  but  not  so  burned  as  to  be  absolutely 
irretrievable,  was  the  “  Daughter  of  Lebanon  ;  ”  and  this  I  have 
printed,  and  have  intentionally  placed  it  at  the  end,  as  appro¬ 
priately  closing  a  record  in  which  the  case  of  poor  Ann  the  Outcast 
formed  not  only  the  most  memorable  and  the  most  suggestively 
pathetic  incident,  but  also  that  which,  more  than  any  other,  col¬ 
ored —  or  (more  truly  I  should  say)  shaped,  moulded  and 
remoulded,  composed  and  decomposed  —  the  great  body  of  opium 
dreams.  The  search  after  the  lost  features  of  Ann,  which  I  spoke 
of  as  pursued  in  the  crowds  of  London,  was  in  a  more  proper 
sense  pursued  through  many  a  year  in  dreams.  The  general  idea 
of  a  search  and  a  chase  reproduced  itself  in  many  shapes.  The 
person,  the  rank,  the  age,  the  scenical  position,  all  varied  them- 
Belves  forever  ;  but  the  same  leading  traits  more  or  less  family 
remained  of  a  lost  Pariah  woman,  and  of  some  shadowy  malice 
which  withdrew  her,  or  attempted  to  withdraw  her,  from  restora¬ 
tion  and  from  hope.  Such  is  the  explanation  which  I  otter  why 
that  particular  addition,  which  some  of  my  friends  had  been 
authorized  to  look  for,  has  not  in  the  main  been  given,  nor  for  the 
present  could  be  given  ;  and,  secondly,  why  that  part  which  i. 
given  has  been  placed  in  the  conspicuous  situation  ( as  a  closini 
passage)  which  it  now  occupies. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


447 


Damascus,  first-born  of  cities,  Om  el  Denia  *  motliei 
of  generations,  that  wast  before  Abraham,  that  wast 
before  the  Pyramids  !  what  sounds  are  those  that, 
from  a  postern  gate,  looking  eastwards  over  secret 
paths  that  wind  away  to  the  far  distant  desert,  break 
the  solemn  silence  of  an  oriental  night  ?  Whose 
voice  is  that  which  calls  up  311  the  spearmen,  keeping 
watch  forever  in  the  turret  surmounting  the  gate, 
to  receive  him  back  into  his  Syrian  home  ?  Thou 
knowest  him,  Damascus,  and  hast  known  him  in 
seasons  of  trouble  as  one  learned  in  the  afflictions  of 
man  ;  wise  alike  to  take  counsel  for  the  suffering 
spirit  or  for  the  suffering  body.  The  voice  that 
breaks  upon  the  night  is  the  voice  of  a  great  evan¬ 
gelist —  one  of  the  four;  and  he  is  also  a  great 
physician.  This  do  the  watchmen  at  the  gate  thank¬ 
fully  acknowledge,  and  joyfully  they  give  him  en¬ 
trance.  Ilis  sandals  are  white  with  dust ;  for  he 
has  been  roaming  for  weeks  beyond  the  desert,  under 
the  guidance  of  Arabs,  on  missions  of  hopeful  benig¬ 
nity  to  Palmyra ;  f  and  in  spirit  he  is  weary  of  all 


*  “  Om  el  Denia:”  —  Mother  of  the  World  is  the  Arabic  title 
of  Damascus.  That  it  was  before  Abraham  —  that  is,  already  an  old 
establishment  much  more  than  a  thousand  years  before  the  siege 
of  Troy,  and  than  two  thousand  years  before  our  Christian  era  — 
may  be  inferred  from  Gen.  xv.  2  ;  and,  by  the  general  c<  nsent  of 
all  eastern  races,  Damascus  is  accredited  as  taking  precedency  it 
age  of  all  cities  to  the  west  of  the  Indus. 

1  Palmyra  had  not  yet  reache  1  its  meridian  splendor  of  Greciaa 
Cevelopment,  as  afterwards  near  tne  age  of  Aurelian,  but  it  w&a 
already  a  noble  city. 


lid 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


things,  except  faithfulness  to  God,  and  turning  lore 
to  man. 

Eastern  cities  are  asleep  betimes  ;  and  sounds  few 
or  none  fretted  the  quiet  of  all  around  him,  as  the 
evangelist  paced  onward  to  the  market-place  ;  but 
there  another  scene  awaited  him.  On  the  right  hand, 
in  an  upper  chamber,  with  lattices  widely  expanded, 
eat  a  festal  company  of  youths,  revelling  under  a 
noonday  blaze  of  light,  from  cressets  and  from  bright 
tripods  that  burned  fragrant  woods  —  all  joining  in 
choral  songs,  all  crowned  with  odorous  wreaths  from 
Daphne  and  the  banks  of  the  Orontes.  Them  the 
evangelist  needed  not ;  but  far  away  upon  the  left, 
close  upon  a  sheltered  nook,  lighted  up  by  a  solitary 
vase  of  iron  fretwork  filled  with  cedar  boughs,  and 
hoisted  high  upon  a  spear,  behold  there  sat  a  woman 
of  loveliness  so  transcendent,  that,  when  suddenly 
revealed,  as  now,  out  of  deepest  darkness,  she 
appalled  men  as  a  mockery,  or  a  birth  of  the  air. 
Was  she  born  of  woman?  Was  it  perhaps  the 
angel  —  so  the  evangelist  argued  with  himself —  that 
met  him  in  the  desert  after  sunset,  and  strengthened 
him  by  secret  talk  ?  The  evangelist  went  up,  and 
touched  her  forehead  ;  and  when  he  found  that  she 
was  indeed  human,  and  guessed,  from  the  station 
which  she  had  chosen,  that  she  waited  for  some  one 
amongst  this  dissolute  crew  as  her  companion,  he 
groaned  heavily  in  spirit,  and  said,  half  to  himself 
but  half  to  her,  “  Wert  thou,  poor,  ruined  flower, 
adorned  so  divinely  at  thy  birth  —  glorified  in  such 
excess,  that  not  Solomon  in  all  his  pomp,  no,  no 
even  the  lilies  of  the  field,  can  approach  thy  gifts  — 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER.  443 

smly  that  thou  shouldest  grieve  the  Holy  Spirit  of 
God  ?  ”  The  woman  trembled  exceedingly,  and  said, 
“  Rabbi,  what  should  I  do  ?  For  behold  !  all  men 
forsake  me.”  The  evangelist  mused  a  little,  and 
then  secretly  to  himself  he  said,  “  Now  will  I  search 
this  woman’s  heart,  whether  in  very  truth  it 
inclineth  itself  to  God,  and  hath  strayed  only  before 
fiery  compulsion.”  Turning  therefore  to  the  woman, 
the  Prophet*  said,  “  Listen  :  I  am  the  messenger  of 
Him  whom  thou  hast  not  known  ;  of  Him  that  made 
Lebanon,  and  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  ;  that  made  the 
sea,  and  the  heavens,  and  the  host  of  the  stars  ;  that 
made  the  light ;  that  made  the  darkness  ;  that  blew 
the  spirit  of  life  into  the  nostrils  of  man.  His  mes¬ 
senger  I  am  :  and  from  Him  all  power  is  given  me  to 
bind  and  to  loose,  to  build  and  to  pull  down.  Ask, 
therefore,  whatsoever  thou  wilt — great  or  small  — 
and  through  me  thou  shalt  receive  it  from  God.  But,, 
my  child,  ask  not  amiss.  For  God  is  able  out  of  thy 
own  evil  asking  to  weave  snares  for  thy  footing. 

*  “  The  Prophet :  ”  — Though  a  Prophet  was  not  therefore  and 
in  virtue  of  that  character  an  Evangelist,  yet  every  Evangelist 
was  necessarily  in  the  scriptural  sense  a  Prophet.  For  let  it  be 
remembered  that  a  Prophet  did  not  mean  a  Predicter  or  Fore - 
ehower  of  events,  except  derivatively  and  inferentially.  What 
leas  a  Prophet  in  the  uniform  scriptural  sense?  He  was  a  man, 
who  drew  aside  the  curtain  from  the  secret  counsels  of  Heaven. 
He  declared,  or  made  public,  the  previously  hidden  truths  of  God  : 
and  because  future  events  might  chance  to  involve  divine  truth, 
therefore  a  revealer  of  future  events  might  happen  so  far  to  be  a 
Prophet.  Yet  still  small  was  that  part  of  a  Prophet’s  function! 
trhich  concerned  the  foreshowing  of  events  ;  and  not  necessarily 
*ny  part. 


29 


450 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


And  oftentimes  to  the  lambs  whom  he  loves  he  give# 
by  seeming  to  refuse  ;  gives  in  some  better  sense,, 
or  ”  (and  his  voice  swelled  into  the  power  of  anthems) 
"in  some  far  happier  world.  Now,  therefore,  my 
daughter,  be  wise  on  thy  own  behalf,  and  say  what 
it  is  that  I  shall  ask  for  thee  from  God.”  But  the 
Daughter  of  Lebanon  needed  not  his  caution  ;  fot 
immediately  dropping  on  one  knee  to  God’s  ambas¬ 
sador,  whilst  the  full  radiance  from  the  cedar  torch 
fell  upon  the  glory  of  a  penitential  eye,  she  raised 
her  clasped  hands  in  supplication,  and  said,  in  answer 
to  the  evangelist  asking  for  a  second  time  what  gift 
he  should  call  down  upon  her  from  Heaven,  "Lord, 
that  thou  wouldest  put  me  back  into  my  father’s 
house.”  And  the  evangelist,  because  he  was  human, 
dropped  a  tear  as  he  stooped  to  kiss  her  forehead, 
saying,  "Daughter,  thy  prayer  is  heard  in  heaven; 
and  I  tell  thee  that  the  daylight  shall  not  come  and 
go  for  thirty  times,  not  for  the  thirtieth  time  shall 
the  sun  drop  behind  Lebanon,  before  I  will  put  thee 
back  into  thy  father’s  house.” 

Thus  the  lovely  lady  came  into  the  guardianship 
of  the  evangelist.  She  sought  not  to  varnish  her 
history,  or  to  palliate  her  own  transgressions.  In  so 
far  as  she  had  offended  at  all,  her  case  was  that  of 
millions  in  every  generation.  Her  father  was  a 
prince  in  Lebanon,  proud,  unforgiving,  austere.  The 
wrongs  done  to  his  daughter  by  her  dishonorable 
lover,  because  done  under  favor  of  opportunities 
created  by  her  confidence  in  his  integrity,  her  father 
persisted  in  resenting  as  wrongs  done  by  this  injured 
daughter  herself;  and,  refusing  to  her  all  protection 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


451 


drove  her,  whilst  yet  confessedly  innocent,  into  crim 
Inal  compliances  under  sudden  necessities  of  seeking 
daily  bread  from  her  own  uninstructed  efforts.  Great 
was  the  wrong  she  suffered  both  from  father  and 
lover ;  great  was  the  retribution.  She  lost  a  churl¬ 
ish  father  and  a  wicked  lover  ;  she  gained  an  apos¬ 
tolic  guardian.  She  lost  a  princely  station  in  Leba¬ 
non  ;  she  gained  an  early  heritage  in  heaven.  For 
this  heritage  is  hers  within  thirty  days,  if  she  will 
not  defeat  it  herself.  And,  whilst  the  stealthy 
motion  of  time  travelled  towards  this  thirtieth  day, 
behold  !  a  burning  fever  desolated  Damascus,  which 
also  laid  its  arrest  upon  the  Daughter  of  Lebanon, 
yet  gently,  and  so  that  hardly  for  an  hour  did  it 
withdraw  her  from  the  heavenly  teachings  of  the 
evangelist.  And  thus  daily  the  doubt  was  strength¬ 
ened,  would  the  holy  apostle  suddenly  touch  her 
with  his  hand,  and  say  ,  “  Woman,  be  thou  whole  1  ” 
or  would  he  present  her  on  the  thirtieth  day  as  a 
pure  bride  to  Christ  ?  But  perfect  freedom  belongs 
to  Christian  service,  and  she  only  must  make  the 
election. 

Up  rose  the  sun  on  the  thirtieth  morning  in  all  his 
pomp,  but  suddenly  was  darkened  by  driving  storms. 
Not  until  noon  was  the  heavenly  orb  again  revealed ; 
then  the  glorious  light  was  again  unmasked,  and 
again  the  Syrian  valleys  rejoiced.  This  was  the  hour 
already  appointed  for  the  baptism  of  the  new  Chris¬ 
tian  daughter.  Heaven  and  earth  shed  gratulation 
jn  the  happy  festival  ;  and,  when  all  was  finished, 
under  an  awning  raised  above  the  level  roof  of  her 
Swelling-house,  the  regenerate  daughter  of  Lebanon,, 


452 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


looking  over  the  rose-gardens  of  Damascus,  with 
amplest  prospect  of  her  native  hills,  lay,  in  blissful 
trance,  making  proclamation,  by  her  white  baptismal 
robes,  of  recovered  innocence  and  cf  reconciliation 
with  God.  And,  when  the  sun  was  declining  to  the 
west,  the  evangelist,  who  had  sat  from  noon  by  the 
bedside  of  his  spiritual  daughter,  rose  solemnly,  and 
said,  “  Lady  of  Lebanon,  the  day  is  already  come, 
and  the  hour  is  coming,  in  which  my  covenant  must 
be  fulfilled  with  thee.  Wilt  thou,  therefore,  being 
now  wiser  in  thy  thoughts,  suffer  God,  thy  new 
Father,  to  give  by  seeming  to  refuse;  to  give  in 
some  better  sense,  or  in  some  far  happier  world  ? 
But  the  Daughter  of  Lebanon  sorrowed  at  these 
words  ;  she  yearned  after  her  native  hills  ;  not  for 
themselves,  but  because  there  it  was  that  she  had 
left  that  sweet  twin-born  sister,  with  whom  from 
infant  days  hand-in-hand  she  had  wandered  amongst 
the  everlasting  cedars.  And  again  the  evangelist 
sat  down  by  her  bedside  ;  whilst  she  by  intervals 
communed  with  him,  and  by  intervals  slept  gen¬ 
tly  under  the  oppression  of  her  fever.  But  as 
evening  drew  nearer,  and  it  wanted  now  but  a  brief 
space  to  the  going  down  of  the  sun,  once  again,  and 
with  deeper  solemnity,  the  evangelist  rose  to  hia 
feet,  and  said,  “  0  daughter!  this  is  the  thirtieth 
day,  and  the  sun  is  drawing  near  to  his  rest ;  brief, 
therefore,  is  the  time  within  which  I  must  fulfil  the 
word  that  God  spoke  to  thee  by  me.”  Then,  because 
light  clouds  of  delirium  were  playing  about  her  brain, 
he  raised  his  pastoral  staff’,  and,  pointing  it  to  he^ 
temples,  rebuked  the  clouds,  and  bade  that  no  mort 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER.  45$ 

they  should  trouble  her  vision,  or  stand  between  hei 
and  the  forests  of  Lebanon.  And  the  delirious  clouds 
parted  asunder,  breaking  away  to  the  right  and  to 
the  left.  But  upon  the  forests  of  Lebanon  there 
hung  a  mighty  mass  of  overshadowing  vapors, 
bequeathed  by  the  morning’s  storm.  And  a  second 
time  the  evangelist  raised  his  pastoral  staff,  and, 
pointing  it  to  the  gloomy  vapors,  rebuked  them, 
and  bade  that  no  more  they  should  stand  between 
his  daughter  and  her  father’s  house.  And  imme¬ 
diately  the  dark  vapors  broke  away  from  LebanoL 
to  the  right  and  to  the  left ;  and  the  farewell  radiance 
of  the  sun  lighted  up  all  the  paths  that  ran  between 
the  everlasting  cedars  and  her  father’s  palace.  But 
vainly  the  lady  of  Lebanon  searched  every  path  with 
her  eyes  for  memorials  of  her  sister.  And  the  evan¬ 
gelist,  pitying  her  sorrow,  turned  away  her  eyes  to 
the  clear  blue  sky,  which  the  departing  vapors  had 
exposed.  And  he  showed  her  the  peace  which  was 
there.  And  then  he  said,  “0  daughter!  this  also  is 
but  a  mask.”  And  immediately  for  the  third  time 
he  raised  his  pastoral  staff,  and,  pointing  it  to  the 
fair  blue  sky,  he  rebuked  it,  and  bade  that  no  more 
it  should  stand  between  her  and  the  vision  of  God. 
Immediately  the  blue  sky  parted  to  the  right  and  to 
the  left,  laying  bare  the  infinite  revelations  that  can 
be  made  visible  only  to  dying  eyes.  And  the  Daugh¬ 
ter  of  Lebanon  said  to  the  evangelist,  "0  father  1 
what  armies  are  these  that  I  see  mustering  within 
the  infinite  chasm?”  And  the  evangelist  replied, 
“These  are  the  armies  of  Christ,  and  they  are  raus- 
tering  to  receive  some  dear  human  blossom,  some 


454  ADDITIONS  TO  CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATEK. 

first-fruits  of  Christian  faith,  that  shall  rise  this  night 
to  Christ  from  Damascus.”  Suddenly,  as  thus  the 
child  of  Lebanon  gazed  upon  the  mighty  vision,  she 
saw  bending  forward  from  the  heavenly  host,  as  if  in 
gratulation  to  herself,  the  one  countenance  for  which 
she  hungered  and  thirsted.  The  twin-sister,  that 
should  have  waited  for  her  in  Lebanon,  had  died  of 
grief,  and  was  waiting  for  her  in  Paradise.  Immedi¬ 
ately  in  rapture  she  soared  upwards  from  her  couch ; 
immediately  in  weakness  she  fell  back  ;  and,  being 
caught  by  the  evangelist,  she  flung  her  arms  around 
his  neck,  whilst  he  breathed  into  her  ear  his  final 
whisper,  “  Wilt  thou  now  suffer  that  God  should 
give  by  seeming  to  refuse?”  —  “  0  yes — yes  — 
yes !  ”  was  the  fervent  answer  from  the  Daughter  of 
Lebanon.  Immediately  the  evangelist  gave  the  sig¬ 
nal  to  the  heavens,  and  the  heavens  gave  the  signal 
to  the  sun  ;  and  in  one  minute  after  the  Daughter  of 
Lebanon  had  fallen  back  a  marble  corpse  amongst 
her  white  baptismal  robes  ;  the  solar  orb  dropped 
behind  Lebanon  ;  and  the  evangelist,  with  eyes 
glorified  by  mortal  and  immortal  tears,  rendered 
thanks  to  God  that  had  thus  accomplished  the  word 
which  he  spoke  through  himself  to  the  Magda¬ 
len  of  Lebanon  —  that  not  for  the  thirtieth  time 
should  the  sun  go  down  behind  her  native  hills, 
before  he  had  put  her  back  into  her  Father’s  house. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATEB , 


i5b 


NOTES  ON  THE  USE  OF  OPIUM.49 

Fiftt-and-two  year’s  experience  of  opium,  as  a 
magical  resource  under  all  modes  of  bodily  suffering,  I 
may  now  claim  to  have  had  —  allowing  only  for  soma 
periods  of  four  or  six  months,  during  which,  by  unex¬ 
ampled  efforts  of  self-conquest,  I  had  accomplished  a 
determined  abstinence  from  opium.*  These  parenthesis 


*  With  what  final  result,  I  have  much  difficulty  in  saying.  Invari¬ 
ably,  after  such  victories,  I  returned,  upon  deliberate  choice  (after 
weighing  all  the  consequences  on  this  side  and  on  that),  to  the  daily 
use  of  opium.  But  with  silent  changes,  many  and  great  (worked 
apparently  by  these  reiterated  struggles),  in  the  opium-eating  habits. 
Amongst  other  changes  was  this,  that  the  quantity  required  gradually 
fell  by  an  enormous  proportion.  According  to  the  modern  slang 
phrase,  I  had  in  the  meridian  stage  of  my  opium  career  used  “ fabu¬ 
lous ”  quantities.  Stating  the  quantities — not  in  solid  opium,  but  in 
the  tincture  (known  to  everybody  as  laudanum )  —  my  daily  ration  was 
eight  thousand  drops.  If  you  write  down  that  amount  in  the  ordinary 
way  as  8000,  you  see  at  a  glance  that  you  may  read  it  into  eight 
quantities  of  a  thousand,  or  eight  hundred  quantities  of  ten,  or  lastly, 
into  eighty  quantities  of  one  hundred.  Now,  a  single  quantity  of  one 
hundred  will  about  fill  a  very  old-fashioned  obsolete  teaspoon,  of  that 
order  which  you  find  still  lingering  amongst  the  respectable  poor. 
Eighty  such  quantities,  therefore,  would  have  filled  eighty  of  such  an¬ 
tediluvian  spoons  —  that  is,  it  would  have  been  the  common  hospital 
dose  for  three  hundred  and  twenty  adult  patients.  But  the  ordinarv 
teaspoon  of  this  present  nineteenth  century  is  nearly  as  capacious  aa 
the  dessert-spoon  of  our  ancestors.  Which  I  have  heard  accounted  for 
thus :  Throughout  the  eighteenth  century,  when  first  tea  became 
known  to  the  working  population,  the  tea-drinkers  were  almost  exclu 
gVely  women ;  men,  even  in  educated  classes,  very  often  persisting 
(down  to  the  French  revolution)  in  treating  such  a  beverage  as  an  idle 
and  effeminate  indulgence.  This  obstinate  twist  in  masculine  habits  it 
was  that  secretly  controlled  the  manufacture  of  teaspoo  is.  Up  to 
Waterloo,  teaspoons  w:re  adjusted  chiefly  to  the  calibre  of  female 
mouths.  Since  then,  gi’eatlv  to  the  benefit  of  the  national  health,  the 
grosser  and  browr  est  sex  have  universal../  fallen  into  the  effeminate 


456  ADDITIONS  TO  THE 

being  subtracted,  as  also,  and  secondly,  some  off-and-ou 
fits  of  tentative  and  intermitting  dalliance  with  opium  in 
the  opening  of  my  career — ’these  deductions  allowed 
for,  I  may  describe  myself  as  experimentally  acquainted 
with  opium  for  something  more  than  half-a-century. 
What,  then,  is  my  final  report  upon  its  good  and  evil 
results  ?  In  particular,  upon  these  two  capital  tenden¬ 
cies  of  habitual  opium-eating  under  the  popular  miscon¬ 
ceptions  —  viz.,  its  supposed  necessity  of  continually 
clamoring  for  increasing  quantities  ;  secondly,  its  sup¬ 
posed  corresponding  declension  in  power  and  efficacy. 
Upon  these  ugly  scandals,  what  is  my  most  deliberate 
award  ?  At  the  age  of  forty,  the  reader  is  aware  that, 
under  our  ancestral  proverb,  every  man  is  a  fool  or  a 
physician.  Apparently  our  excellent  ancestors,  aiming 
undeniably  at  alliteration,  spelled  physician  with  an  f 
And  why  not  ?  A  man’s  physic  might  be  undeniable, 
although  his  spelling  should  be  open  to  some  slight  im¬ 
provements.  But  I  presume  that  the  proverb  meant  to 
exact  from  any  man  only  so  much  medical  skill  as  should 
undertake  the  responsibility  of  his  own  individual  health. 
It  is  my  duty,  it  seems,  thus  far  to  be  a  physician  —  to 
guarantee,  so  far  as  human  foresight  can  guarantee,  my 
own  corporeal  sanity.  And  this,  trying  the  case  by  or¬ 
dinary  practical  tests,  I  have  accomplished.  And  I 
add  solemnly,  that  without  opium,  most  certainly  I  could 
not  have  accomplished  such  a  result.  Thirty-five  years 
ago,  beyond  all  doubt,  I  should  have  been  in  my  grave. 
And  as  to  the  two  popular  dilemmas  —  that  either  yea 

habit  of  tea-drinking  ;  and  the  capacity  of  teaspoons  has  naturally 
conformsd  to  the  new  order  of  cormorant  mouths  that  ha\  e  alightefl 
by  myriads  upon  the  tea-trays  of  these  later  generations. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-E  ITER. 


457 


nust  renounce  opium,  or  else  indefinitely  augment  tha 
daily  ration ;  and,  secondly,  that,  even  submitting  to 
ruch  a  postulate,  you  must  content  yourself,  under  any 
Beale  of  doses,  with  an  effect  continually  decaying,  io 
fact,  that  you  must  ultimately  descend  into  the  despair¬ 
ing  condition  of  the  martyr  to  dram-drinking  — -  at  this 
point,  I  make  a  resolute  stand,  in  blank  denial  of  the 
whole  doctrine.  Originally,  when  first  entering  upon 
my  opium  career,  I  did  so  with  great  anxiety  :  and  be 
fore  my  eyes  floated  forever  the  analogies  —  dim,  or 
not  dim,  according  to  my  spirits  at  the  moment  —  of  the 
poor,  perishing  brandy-drinker,  often  on  the  brink  of 
delirium  tremens !  Opium  I  pursued  under  a  harsh 
necessity,  as  an  unknown,  shadowy  power,  leading  I 
knew  not  whither,  and  a  power  that  might  suddenly 
change  countenance  upon  this  unknown  road.  Habitu¬ 
ally  I  lived  under  such  an  impression  of  awe  as  we  have 
all  felt  from  stories  of  fawns,  or  seeming  fawns,  that 
have  run  before  some  mounted  hunter  for  many  a  league, 
until  they  have  tempted  him  far  into  the  mazes  of  a 
boundless  forest,  and  at  that  point,  where  all  regress  had 
become  lost  and  impossible,  either  suddenly  vanished, 
leaving  the  man  utterly  bewildered,  or  assumed  some 
more  fearful  shape.  A  part  of  the  evil  which  I  feared 
actually  unfolded  itself ;  but  all  was  due  to  my  own  ig¬ 
norance,  to  neglect  of  cautionary  measures,  or  to  gross 
mismanagement  of  my  health  in  points  where  I  well 
knew  the  risks  but  grievously  underrated  their  urgency 
and  pressure.  I  was  temperate :  that  solitary  advan¬ 
tage  I  had  ;  but  I  sark  under  the  lulling  seductions  of 
[>pium  into  total  sedentariness,  and  that  whilst  holding 
Irmly  the  belief,  that  powerful  exercise  was  omnipotent 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


458 

Hgain3t  all  modes  of  debility  or  obscure  nervous  irrita¬ 
tions.  The  account  of  my  depression,  and  almost  of  my 
Helplessness,  in  the  next  memorandum  (No.  3),  is  faith¬ 
ful  as  a  description  to  the  real  case.  But,  in  ascribing 
that  case  to  opium,  as  any  transcendent  and  overmaster- 
ing  agency,  I  was  thoroughly  wrong.  Twenty  days  of 
exercise,  twenty  times  twenty  miles  of  walking,  at  the 
ordinary  pace  of  three  and  a-half  miles  an  hour,  or  per¬ 
haps  half  that  amount,  would  have  sent  me  up  as  buoy¬ 
antly  as  a  balloon  into  regions  of  natural  and  healthy 
excitement,  where  dejection  is  an  impossible  phenome¬ 
non.  O  heavens  !  how  man  abuses  or  neglects  his  natu¬ 
ral  resources !  Yes,  the  thoughtful  reader  is  disposed 
to  say  ;  but  very  possibly  distinguishing  between  such 
natural  resources  and  opium  as  a  resource  that  is  not 
natural,  but  highly  artificial,  or  even  absolutely  unnat¬ 
ural.  I  think  otherwise  :  upon  the  basis  of  my  really 
vast,  perhaps  unequalled,  experience  (let  me  add  of  my 
tentative  experience,  varying  its  trials  in  every  conceiv¬ 
able  mode,  so  as  to  meet  the  question  at  issue  under 
every  angle),  I  advance  these  three  following  proposi¬ 
tions,  all  of  them  unsuspected  by  the  popular  mind,  and 
the  last  of  them  (as  cannot  much  longer  fail  to  be  dis¬ 
covered)  bearing  a  national  value  —  I  mean,  as  meeting 
our  English  hereditary  complaint :  — 

1.  With  respect  to  the  morbid  growth  upon  the  opium- 
eater  of  his  peculiar  habit,  when  once  rooted  in  the  sys¬ 
tem,  and  throwing  out  tentacula  like  a  cancer,  it  is  out  ol 
jay  power  to  deliver  any  such  oracular  judgment  upon  the 
ease  —  i.  e.,  upon  the  apparent  danger  of  such  a  course, 
Mid  by  what  stages  it  might  be  expected  to  travel  towards 
ia  final  consummation  —  as  naturally  I  should  wisi 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


459 


K>  do.  Being  an  oracle,  it  is  my  wish  to  behave  myself 
like  an  oracle,  and  not  to  evade  any  decent  man’s  ques 
fcions  in  the  way  that  Apollo  too  often  did  at  Delphi. 
But,  in  this  particular  instance  before  me,  the  accident 
of  my  own  individual  seamanship  in  presence  of  this 
Btorm  interfered  with  the  natural  evolution  of  the  prob¬ 
lem  in  its  extreme  form  of  danger.  I  had  become  too 
uneasy  under  the  consciousness  of  that  intensely  artiff* 
cial  condition  into  which  I  had  imperceptibly  lapsed 
through  unprecedented  quantities  of  opium  ;  the  shad* 
ows  of  eclipse  were  too  dark  and  lurid  not  to  rouse  and 
alarm  me  into  a  spasmodic  effort  for  reconquering  the 
ground  which  I  had  lost.  Such  an  effort  I  made  : 
every  step  by  which  I  had  gone  astray  did  I  patiently 
unthread.  And  thus  I  fought  off  the  natural  and  spon¬ 
taneous  catastrophe,  whatever  that  might  be,  which 
mighty  Nature  would  else  have  let  loose  for  redressing 
the  wrongs  offered  to  herself.  But  what  followed? 
[n  six  or  eight  months  more,  upon  fresh  movements 
arising  of  insupportable  nervous  irritation,  I  fleeted 
back  into  the  same  opium  lull.  To  and  fro,  up  and 
down,  did  I  tilt  upon  those  mountainous  seas,  for  year 
after  year.  “  See-saw,*  like  Margery  Daw,  that  sold 
her  bed  and  lay  on  straw.”  Even  so  did  I,  led  astray, 
perhaps,  by  the  classical  example  of  Miss  Daw,  see-saw 
for  year  after  year,  out  and  in,  of  manoeuvres  the  most  iD- 


*  “  See-saw &c. :  —  0  dear  reader,  surely  you  don’t  want  an  ora¬ 
cle  to  tell  you  that  this  is  a  good  old  nursery  lyric,  which  through  four 
senturies  has  stood  the  criticism  — stood  the  anger  against  Daw’s  ene¬ 
mies  —  stood  the  pity  for  Daw  herself,  sc  infamously  reduced  to  stra* 
-—of  children  through  eighty  generations,  reckoning  five  yearn  U 
ttcfc  uursery  succession.' 


480 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


tricate,  dances  the  most  elaborate,  receding  or  approach 
ing,  round  my  great  central  sun  of  opium.  Sometimes 
I  ran  perilously  close  into  my  perihelion ;  sometimes 
I  became  frightened,  and  wheeled  off  into  a  vast  com¬ 
etary  aphelion,  where  for  six  months  “  opium  ”  was  a 
word  unknown.  How  nature  stood  all  these  see-saw- 
iugs  is  quite  a  mystery  to  me :  I  must  have  led  her  a 
Bad  life  in  those  days.  Nervous  irritation  forced  me,  at 
times,  upon  frightful  excesses  ;  but  terror  from  anoma¬ 
lous  symptoms  sooner  or  later  forced  me  back.  This 
terror  was  strengthened  by  the  vague  hypothesis  cur¬ 
rent  at  that  period  about  spontaneous  combustion. 
Might  I  not  myself  take  leave  of  the  literary  world  in 
that  fashion  ?  According  to  the  popular  fancy,  there 
were  two  modes  of  this  spontaneity  ;  and  really  very 
little  to  choose  between  them.  Upon  one  variety  of 
this  explosion,  a  man  blew  up  in  the  dark,  without 
match  or  candle  near  him,  leaving  nothing  behind  him 
but  some  bones,  of  no  use  to  anybody,  and  which  were 
Bripposed  to  be  his  only  because  nobody  else  ever  ap¬ 
plied  for  them.  It  was  fancied  that  some  volcanic 
agency  —  an  unknown  deposition  —  accumulated  from 
bo  me  vast  redundancy  of  brandy,  furnished  the  self-ex- 
ploding  principle.  But  this  startled  the  faith  of  most 
people ;  and  a  more  plausible  scheme  suggested  itself, 
which  depended  upon  the  concurrence  of  a  lucifer-match. 
Without  an  incendiary,  a  man  could  not  take  fire.  W 0 
sometimes  see  the  hands  of  inveterate  dram-drinkers 
throw  off  an  atmosphere  of  intoxicating  vapors  strong 
enough  to  lay  flies  into  a  state  of  sleep  or  coma  ;  and 
on  the  same  principle,  it  was  supposed  that  the  breath 
toight  be  so  loaded  with  spirituous  particles,  as  to  catci 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


461 


Sre  from  a  match  applied  to  a  pipe  when  held  between 
the  lips.  If  so,  then  what  should  hinder  the  “  devour¬ 
ing  element  ”  (as  newspapers  call  fire)  from  spreading 
through  the  throat  to  the  cavity  of  the  chest :  in  which 
case,  not  being  insured,  the  man  would  naturally  become 
a  total  loss.  Opium,  however,  it  will  occur  to  the 
reader,  is  not  alcohol.  That  is  true.  But  it  might,  for 
anything  that  was  known  experimentally,  be  ultimately 
worse.  Coleridge,  the  only  person  known  to  the  public 
as  having  dallied  systematically  and  for  many  years  with 
opium,  could  not  be  looked  to  for  any  candid  report  of 
its  history  and  progress  ;  besides  that,  Coleridge  was 
under  a  permanent  craze  of  having  nearly  accomplished 
his  own  liberation  from  opium ;  and  thus  he  had  come 
to  have  an  extra  reason  for  self-delusion.  Finding  my¬ 
self,  therefore,  walking  on  a  solitary  path  of  bad  repute, 
leading  whither  no  man’s  experience  could  tell  me,  I  be¬ 
came  proportionably  cautious  ;  and  if  nature  had  any 
plot  for  making  an  example  of  me,  I  was  resolved  to 
baulk  her.  Thus  it  was  that  I  never  followed  out  the 
reductions  of  opium  to  their  final  extremity.  But, 
nevertheless,  in  evading  that  extremity,  I  stumbled  upon 
as  great  a  discovery  as  if  I  had  not  evaded  it.  After  the 
first  or  second  self-conquest  in  this  conflict  —  although 
finding  it  impossible  to  persist  through  more  than  a  few 
nonths  in  the  abstinence  from  opium  —  I  remarked, 
however,  that  the  domineering  tyranny  of  its  exactions 
was  at  length  steadily  declining.  Quantities  noticeably 
.ess  had  now  become  sufficient :  and  after  the  fourth  ol 
these  victories,  won  with  continually  decreasing  efforts, 
l  found  that  not  only  had  the  daily  dose  (upon  relaps- 
S }g)  suffered  a  self-limitation  to  an  enormous  extent,  bat 


462 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


also  that,  upon  any  attempt  obstinately  to  ienew  th« 
old  doses,  there  arose  a  new  symptom  —  viz.,  an  irrita¬ 
tion  on  the  surface  of  the  skin  —  which  soon  became 
insupportable,  and  tended  to  distraction.  In  abGut  four 
years,  without  any  further  efforts,  my  daily  ration  had 
fallen  spontaneously  from  a  varying  quantity  of  eight, 
ten,  or  twelve  thousand  drops  of  laudanum  to  about 
three  hundred.  I  describe  the  drug  as  laudanum ,  be¬ 
cause  another  change  ran  along  collaterally  with  this  su¬ 
preme  change  —  viz.,  that  the  solid  opium  began  to  re¬ 
quire  a  length  of  time,  continually  increasing,  to  expand 
its  effects  sensibly,  oftentimes  not  less  than  four  hours ; 
whereas  the  tincture  manifested  its  presence  instanta¬ 
neously. 

Thus,  then,  I  had  reached  a  position  from  which  au¬ 
thoritatively  it  might  be  pronounced,  as  a  result  of  long, 
anxious,  and-vigilant  experience,  that,  on  the  assumption 
of  earnest  (even  though  intermitting)  efforts  towards 
recurrent  abstinences  on  the  part  of  the  opium-eater, 
the  practice  of  indulging  to  the  very  greatest  excess  in 
this  narcotic  tends  to  a  natural  (almost  an  inevitable) 
eutlianasy.  Many  years  ago,  when  briefly  touching  on 
this  subject,  I  announced  (as  a  fact  even  then  made 
known  to  me)  that  no  instance  of  abstinence,  though  it 
were  but  of  three  days’  continuance,  ever  perishes.  Ten 
grains,  deducted  from  a  daily  ration  of  five  hundred, 
will  tell  through  a ’series  of  many  weeks,  and  will  be 
found  again  modifying  the  final  result,  even  at  the  close 
W  the  years  reckoning.  At  this  day,  after  a  half-cen¬ 
tury  of  oscillating  experience,  and  after  no  efforts  or 
►rying  acts  of  self-denial  beyond  those  severe  ones  at¬ 
tached  to  the  several  processes  (five  or  six  in  all)  of  re 


CONFESSIONS  OF  IN  OPIUM-EATER. 


463 


conquering  my  freedom  from  the  yoke  of  opium,  I  find 
myself  pretty  nearly  at  the  same  station  which  I  occu¬ 
pied  at  that  vast  distance  of  time.  It  is  recorded  of 
Lord  Nelson,  that,  even  after  the  Nile  and  Copenhagen, 
lie  still  paid  the  penalty,  on  the  first  days  of  resuming 
hi3  naval  life,  which  is  generally  exacted  by  nature  from 
the  youngest  little  middy  or  the  rawest  griffin  — -  viz., 
sea-sickness.  And  this  happens  to  a  considerable  pro¬ 
portion  of  sailors :  they  do  not  recover  their  sea-legs  till 
some  days  after  getting  afloat.  The  very  same  thing 
happens  to  veteran  opium-eaters,  when  first,  after  long 
intermissions,  resuming  too  abruptly  their  ancient  famil 
iarities  with  opium.  It  is  a  fact,  which  I  mention  as  in 
dicating  the  enormous  revolutions  passed  through,  thav 
within  these  five  years,  I  have  turned  pale,  and  felt 
warnings,  pointing  towards  such  an  uneasiness,  after  tak¬ 
ing  not  more  than  twenty  grains  of  opium.  At  present, 
and  for  some  years,  I  have  been  habitually  content  with 
five  or  six  grains  daily,  instead  of  three  hundred  and 
twenty  to  four  hundred  grains.  Let  me  wind  up  thi? 
letrospect  with  saying  that  the  powers  of  opium,  as  au 
anodyne,  but  still  more  as  a  tranquillizer  of  nervous  and 
anomalous  sensations,  have  not  in  the  smallest  degree 
decayed  ;  and  that,  if  it  has  casually  unveiled  its  early 
power  of  exacting  slight  penalties  from  any  trivial  inat 
iention  to  accurate  proportions,  it  has  more  than  com- 
mensurately  renewed  its  ancient  privilege  of  lulling  irri 
fcation,  and  of  supporting  preternatural  calls  for  oxer- 
on. 

My  first  proposition,  therefore,  amounts  to  this  —  that 
Lie  process  of  weaning  one’s-self  from  the  deep  bondage 
\£  opium,  by  many  people  viewed  with  despairing  eyea 


164 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


is  not  only  a  possible  achievement,  and  one  which  glow* 
easier  in  every  stage  of  its  progress,  but  is  favored  and 
promoted  by  nature  in  secret  ways  that  could  not,  with¬ 
out  some  experience,  have  been  suspected.  This,  how¬ 
ever,  is  but  a  sorry  commendation  of  any  resource  mak¬ 
ing  great  pretensions,  that,  by  a  process  confessedly  try¬ 
ing  to  human  firmness,  it  can  ultimately  be  thrown 
aside.  Certainly  little  would  be  gained  by  the  negative 
service  of  cancelling  a  drawback  upon  any  agency  what¬ 
ever,  until  it  were  shown  that  this  drawback  has  availed 
to  disturb  and  neutralize  great  positive  blessings  lying 
within  the  gift  of  that  agency.  What  are  the  advantages 
connected  with  opium  that  can  merit  any  such  name  as 
blessings  ? 

II.  Briefly  let  me  say,  in  the  second  proposition,  that 
if  the  reader  had,  in  any  South  American  forest,  seen 
growing  rankly  some  great  febrifuge  (such  as  the 
Jesuits’  bark),  he  would  probably  have  noticed  it  with 
slight  regard.  To  understand  its  value,  he  must  first 
have  suffered  from  intermittent  fever.  Bark  might 
strike  him  as  an  unnatural  stimulant ;  but,  when  he 
came  to  see  that  tertian  or  quartan  fever  was  also  an  un¬ 
natural  pressure  upon  human  energies,  he  would  begin 
to  guess  that  two  counter  unnaturals  may  terminate  in 
one  most  natural  and  salubrious  result.  Nervous  ir¬ 
ritation  is  the  secret  desolator  of  human  life ;  and  for 
this  there  is  probably  no  adequate  controlling  power 
tut  that  of  opium,  taken  daily,  under  steady  regula¬ 
tion. 

1IL  But  even  more  momentous  is  the  burden  of 
wy  third  proposition.  Are  you  aware,  reader,  what  i* 
«  that  constitutes  the  scourge  (physically  speaking 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


465 


•f  Great  Britain  and  Ireland?  All  readers,  who  direct 
any  part  of  their  attention  to  medical  subjects  must 
know  that  it  is  pulmonary  consumption.  If  you  walk 
through  a  forest  at  certain  seasons,  you  will  see  what  is 
called  a  blaze  of  white  paint  upon  a  certain  elite  of  the 
trees  marked  out  by  the  forester  as  ripe  for  the  axe. 
Such  a  blaze,  if  the  shadowy  world  could  reveal  its 
futurities,  would  be  seen  everywhere  distributing  its 
secret  badges  of  cognizance  amongst  our  youthful  men 
and  women.  Of  those  that,  in  the  expression  of  Pericles, 
constitute  the  vernal  section  of  our  population,  what  & 
multitudinous  crowd  would  be  seen  to  wear  upon  their 
foreheads  the  same  sad  ghastly  blaze,  or  some  equivalent 
symbol  of  dedication  to  an  early  grave.  How  appalling 
in  its  amount  is  this  annual  slaughter  amongst  those 
that  should  by  birthright  be  specially  the  children  of 
hope,  and  levied  impartially  from  every  rank  of  society  ! 
Is  the  income-tax  or  the  poor-rate,  faithful  as  each  is  to 
its  regulating  tide-tables,  paid  by  any  class  with  as  much 
punctuality  as  this  premature  Jlorileyium,  this  gathering 
and  rendering  up  of  blighted  blossoms,  by  all  classes  ? 
Then  comes  the  startling  question  —  that  pierces  the 
breaking  hearts  of  so  many  thousand  afflicted  relatives 
—  Is  there  no  remedy  ?  Is  there  no  palliation  of  the 
evil?  Waste  not  a  thought  upon  the  idle  question, 
whether  he  that  speaks  is  armed  with  this  form  or  that 
form  of  authorization  and  sanction  !  Think  within 
yourself  how  infinite  would  be  the  scorn  of  any  poor 
sorrow-stricken  mother,  if  she  —  standing  over  the  coffin 
pf  ber  daughter  —  could  believe  or  could  imagine  that 
&uy  vestige  of  ceremonial  scruples,  or  of  fool-born  su¬ 
perstitions,  or  the  terror  of  a  word,  or  old  traditional 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


m 

piejudice,  had  been  allowed  to  neutralize  one  chance  m 
i  thousand  for  her  daughter  —  had  by  possibility  (but, 
as  I  could  tell  her,  had  sometimes  to  a  certainty)  stepped 
between  patients  and  deliverance  from  the  grave,  sura 
and  perfect !  “  What  matter,”  she  would  cry  out,  indig¬ 

nantly,  “who  it  is  that  says  the  thing,  so  long  as  the 
thing  itself  is  true  ?  ”  It  is  the  potent  and  faithful  word 
that  is  wanted,  in  perfect  slight  of  the  organ  through 
which  it  is  uttered.  Let  me  premise  this  notorious  fact, 
that  all  consumption,  though  latent  in  the  constitution, 
and  indicated  often  to  the  eye  in  bodily  conformation, 
does  not  therefore  manifest  itself  as  a  disease,  until  some 
form  of  “  cold,”  or  bronchitis,  some  familiar  affection  of 
the  chest  or  of  the  lungs,  arises  to  furnish  a  starting- 
point  for  the  morbid  development.*  Now  the  one  fatal 
blunder  lies  in  suffering  that  development  to  occur ;  and 
the  one  counterworking  secret  for  pre-arrestment  of  this 
evil  lies  in  steadily,  by  whatever  means,  keej)ing  up  and 
promoting  the  insensible  perspiration.  In  that  one 
simple  art  of  controlling  a  constant  function  of  the  ani¬ 
mal  economy,  lies  a  magician’s  talisman  for  defeating 
the  forces  leagued  against  the  great  organs  of  respira- 

*  Here  is  a  parallel  case,  equally  fatal  where  it  occurs,  but  happily 
moving  within  a  far  narrower  circle.  About  fifty  years  ago,  Sir 
Everard  Home,  a  surgeon  of  the  highest  class,  mentioned  as  a  dread¬ 
ful  caution,  that,  within  his  own  experience,  many  an  indolent  tumor 
in  the  face,  not  unfrequently  the  most  trifling  pimple,  which  for  thirty 
or  more  years  had  caused  no  uneasiness  whatever,  suddenly  might 
#hance  to  receive  the  slightest  possible  wound  from  a  razor  in  the  act 
t  f  shaving  What  followed  ?  Once  disturbed,  the  trivial  excrescence 
oecame  an  open  cancer.  Is  the  parallel  catastrophe  in  the  pulmonary 
tystem,  when  pushed  forward  into  development,  at  all  less  likely  f* 
bide  its  importance  from  uninstructed  eyes?  Yet,  on  the  other  h&nd 
i  is  thousand  times  more  likely  to  happen. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPICM-EATER, 


467 


Hon.  Pulmonary  affections,  not  previously  suffered  to 
develop  themselves,  cannot  live  under  the  hourly  coun¬ 
terworking  of  this  magical  force.  Consequently  the  one 
question  in  arrear  is,  what  potent  drug  is  that  which  pos« 
sesses  this  power,  a  power  like  that  of  “  Amram’s  son,” 
for  evoking  salubrious  streams,  welling  forth  benignly 
from  systems  else  parched  and  arid  as  rocks  in  the  wil¬ 
derness  ?  There  is  none  that  I  know  of  answering  the 
need  but  opium.  The  powers  of  the  great  agent  I  first 
learned  dimly  to  guess  at  from  a  remark  made  to  me  by 
a  lady  in  London ;  then,  and  for  some  time  previously, 
she  had  been  hospitably  entertaining  Coleridge,  whom, 
indeed,  she  tended  with  the  anxiety  of  a  daughter. 
Consequently,  she  was  familiarly  acquainted  with  his 
opium  habits  ;  and  on  my  asking,  in  reply  to  some  re¬ 
mark  of  hers,  how  she  could  be  so  sure  as  her  words  im¬ 
plied,  that  Coleridge  was  just  then  likely  to  be  incapac¬ 
itated  for  writing  (or,  indeed,  for  any  literary  exertion ), 
she  said,  “  Oh,  I  know  it  well  by  the  glistening  of  his 
theeks.”  Coleridge’s  face,  as  is  well  known  to  his  ac¬ 
quaintances,  exposed  a  large  surface  of  cheek  ;  too  large 
for  the  intellectual  expression  of  his  features  generally, 
had  not  the  final  effect  been  redeemed  by  what  Words¬ 
worth  styled  his  “  godlike  forehead.”  The  result  was, 
that  no  possible  face  so  broadly  betrayed  and  published 
any  effects  whatever,  especially  these  lustrous  effects 
from  excesses  in  opium.  For  some  years  I  failed  to 
consider  reflectively,  or  else,  reflecting,  1  failed  to  deci¬ 
pher,  this  resplendent  acreage  of  cheek.  But  at  last, 
e  ther  proprio  marte ,  or  prompted  by  some  medical  hint, 
l  came  to  understand  that  the  glistening  face,  glorious 
from  afar  like  the  old  Pagan  face  of  the  demigod  iEecn 


468 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


lapius,  simply  reported  the  gathering  accumulations  o* 
insensible  perspiration.  In  the  very  hour,  a  memorable 
hour,  of  making  that  discovery,  I  made  another.  My 
own  history,  medically  speaking,  involved  a  mystery. 
At  the  commencement  of  my  opium  career,  I  had  my¬ 
self  been  pronounced  repeatedly  a  martyr  elect  to  pub 
monary  consumption.  And  although,  in  the  common 
decencies  of  humanity,  this  opinion  upon  my  prospects 
had  always  been  accompanied  with  some  formal  words 
of  encouragement  —  as,  for  instance,  that  constitutions, 
after  all,  varied  by  endless  differences ;  that  nobody 
could  fix  limits  to  the  powers  of  medicine,  or,  in  default 
of  medicine,  to  the  healing  resources  of  nature  herself ; 
yet,  without  something  like  a  miracle  in  my  favor,  I  was 
instructed  to  regard  myself  as  a  condemned  subject. 
That  was  the  upshot  of  these  agreeable  communications  ; 
alarming  enough  ;  and  they  were  rendered  more  so  by 
these  three  facts :  first,  that  the  opinions  were  pro¬ 
nounced  by  the  highest  authorities  in  Christendom — • 
viz.,  the  physicians  at  Clifton  and  the  Bristol  Hotwells, 
who  saw  more  of  pulmonary  disorders  in  one  twelve- 
month  than  the  rest  of  the  profession  through  all  Eu 
rope  in  a  century  ;  for  the  disease,  it  must  be  remem¬ 
bered,  was  almost  peculiar  as  a  national  scourge  to  Brit¬ 
ain,  interlinked  with  the  local  accidents  of  the  climate 
and  its  restless  changes ;  so  that  only  in  England  could 
it  be  studied  ;  and  even  there  only  in  perfection  at  these 
Bristolian  adjacencies  —  the  reason  being  this,  all  opu 
lent  patients  resorted  to  the  Devonshire  watering-places 
where  the  balmy  temperature  of  the  air  and  prevailing 
winds  allowed  the  myrtle  and  other  greenhouse  shrubs 
A)  gland  out-of-doors  all  winter  through ;  and  naturally 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


469 


im  the  road  to  Devonshire  all  patients  alike  touched  &t 
Clifton.  There  I  was  myself  continually  resident, 
Many,  therefore,  and  of  supreme  authority,  were  the 
prophets  of  evil  that  announced  to  me  my  doom.  Sec¬ 
ondly,  they  were  countenanced  by  the  ugly  fact,  that  I 
out  of  eight  children  was  the  one  who  most  closely  in¬ 
herited  the  bodily  conformation  of  a  father  who  died  o4 
consumption  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-nine.  Thirdly. 
I  offered  at  the  first  glance,  to  a  medical  eye,  every 
Bymptom  of  phthisis  broadly  and  conspicuously  devel¬ 
oped.  The  hectic  colors  in  the  face,  the  nocturnal  per¬ 
spirations,  the  growing  embarrassments  of  the  respira¬ 
tion,  and  other  expressions  of  gathering  feebleness 
under  any  attempts  at  taking  exercise  —  all  these  symp¬ 
toms  were  steadily  accumulating  between  the  age  of 
twenty-two  and  twenty-four.  What  was  it  that  first  ar¬ 
rested  them  ?  Simply  the  use,  continually  becoming 
more  regular  of  opium.  Nobody  recommended  this 
drug  to  me  ;  on  the  contrary,  under  that  ignorant  horror 
which  everywhere  invested  opium,  I  saw  too  clearly  that 
any  avowed  use  of  it  would  expose  me  to  a  rabid  perse¬ 
cution.*  Under  the  sincere  and  unaffected  hope  of  saving 
me  from  destruction,  I  should  have  been  hunted  into  the 

*  “  Rabid  persecution :  ”  — I  do  not  mean  that,  in  the  circumstances 
of  my  individual  position,  any  opening  could  have  arisen  tc  an  opposi¬ 
tion  more  than  verbal;  since  it  would  have  been  easy  fcr  me  at  all 
times  to  withdraw  myself  by  hundreds  of  leagues  from  controversies 
upon  the  case.  But  the  reasons  for  concealment  were  not  the  less  ur¬ 
gent.  For  it  would  have  been  painful  to  find  myself  reduced  to  th® 
iilevnma  of  either  practising  habitual  and  complex  dissimulation,  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  throwing  myself  headlong  into  that  fiery  vor- 
lex  of  hotheaded  ignorance  upon  the  very  name  of  opium,  which  to 
•5iis  hour  (though  with  less  of  ran:orous  bigotry)  makes  it  hazardorj 

avow  any  daily  use  of  so  potent  a  drug. 


470 


4DDITI0NS  TO  THE 


grave  within  sis  months.  I  kept  my  own  counsel ;  said 
nothing  ;  awakened  no  suspicions  ;  persevered  more  and 
more  determinately  in  the  use  of  opium  ;  and  finally  ef¬ 
fected  so  absolute  a  conquest  over  all  pulmonary  symp¬ 
toms,  as  could  not  have  failed  to  fix  upon  me  the  astonish¬ 
ment  of  Clifton,  had  not  the  sense  of  wonder  been  broken 
by  the  lingering  time  consumed  in  the  several  stages  of 
the  malady,  and  still  more  effectually  by  my  own  per¬ 
sonal  withdrawal  from  Clifton  and  its  neighborhoods. 

Finally,  arose  what  will  inevitably  turn  out  a  more 
decisive  chapter  in  such  a  record.  I  had  always  fixed 
my  eyes  and  my  expectations  upon  a  revolution  in  the 
social  history  of  opium,  which  could  not  (as  I  assured 
myself)  by  accident  or  by  art  be  materially  deferred. 
The  great  social  machinery  of  life-insurance,  supposing 
no  other  agency  to  be  brought  into  play,  how  would  that 
affect  the  great  medicinal  interests  of  opium  ?  I  knew 
that  insurance  offices,  and  the  ablest  actuaries  of  such 
offices,  were  not  less  ignorant  upon  the  real  merits  of  the 
opium  question,  and  (which  was  worse)  not  less  pro¬ 
foundly  prejudiced ,  or  less  fanatical  in  their  prejudices, 
than  the  rest  of  society.  But,  then,  there  were  interests, 
growing  continually,  which  would  very  soon  force  them 
into  relaxing  these  prejudices.  It  would  be  alleged,  at 
first,  that  opium-eating  increased  the  risk  of  a  life-insur¬ 
ance.  Waiving  the  question  whether  it  really  did  in¬ 
crease  that  risk,  in  any  case  that  increase  of  risk,  like 
other  risks,  could  be  valued,  and  must  be  valued.  New 
habits  were  arising  in  society  :  that  I  well  knew.  And 
the  old  machineries  for  insuring  life  interests,  under 
these  or  any  other  shifting  conditions,  would  be  obliged 
io  adapt  themselves  to  changing  circumstances.  Tf  tb« 


CONCESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER.  471 

*  f 

old  offices  should  be  weak  enough  to  persist  in  then 
misdirected  obstinacy,  new  ones  would  arise.  Mean¬ 
time  the  history  of  this  question  moved  through  the  fol¬ 
lowing  aspects:  Sixteen  and  seventeen  years  ago,  the 
offices  all  looked  with  horror  upon  opium-eaters.  Thus 
far,  all  men  must  have  disapproved  the  principles  of 
their  policy.  Habitual  brandy-drinkers  met  with  no  re¬ 
pulse.  And  yet  alcohol  leads  into  daily  dangers  —  for 
instance,  that  of  delirium  tremens.  But  no  man  ever 
heard  of  opium  leading  into  delirium  tremens.  In  the 
one  case,  there  are  well  ascertained  and  notorious  dangers 
besetting  the  path ;  but,  in  the  other,  supposing  any 
corresponding  dangers  to  exist,  they  have  yet  to  be  dis¬ 
covered.  However,  the  offices  would  not  look  at  us  who 
came  forward  avowing  ourselves  to  be  opium-eaters. 
Myself  in  particular  they  regarded,  I  believe,  as  the 
abomination  of  desolation.  And  fourteen  offices  in 
succession,  within  a  few  months,  repulsed  me  as  a  can¬ 
didate  for  insurance  on  that  solitary  ground  of  having 
owned  myself  to  be  an  opium-eater.  The  insurance  was 
of  very  little  consequence  to  myself,  though  involving 
some  interest  to  others.  And  I  contented  myself  with  say¬ 
ing,  “  Ten  years  hence,  gentlemen,  you  will  have  come  to 
understand  your  own  interests  better.”  In  less  then  seven 
years  I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Tait,  surgeon  to  the 
Police  Force  in  Edinburgh,  reporting  a  direct  investiga¬ 
tion  officially  pursued  by  him  under  private  instructions 
received  from  two  or  more  insurance  offices.  I  knew, 
at  the  beginning  of  these  seven  years,  or  had  strong  rea- 
ons  for  believing,  that  the  habit  of  opium-eating  was 
ipreading  extensively,  and  through  classes  of  society 
cidely  disconnected.  This  diffusion  would,  beyc  nd  a 


472 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


doubt,  as  one  of  its  earliest  consequences,  coerce  the  in¬ 
surance  offices  into  a  strict  revision  of  their  old  blind 
policy.  Accordingly  it  had  already  done  so ;  and  the 
earliest  fruits  of  this  revolution  were  now  before  me  in 
the  proof-sheets  so  obligingly  transmitted  by  Mr.  Taifc. 
His  object,  as  I  understood  it,  in  sending  these  proofs  to 
myself,  was  simply  to  collect  such  additional  notices, 
suggestions,  or  skeptical  queries,  as  might  reasonably  be 
anticipated  f/om  any  reflective  opium  experience  so 
extensive  as  my  own.  Most  unhappily,  this  gentleman, 
during  the  course  of  our  brief  correspondence,  was  sud¬ 
denly  attacked  by  typhus  fever ;  and  after  a  short  illness, 
to  my  own  exceeding  regret,  he  died.  On  all  accounts 
I  had  reason  for  sorrow.  Knowing  him  only  through 
his  very  interesting  correspondence  with  myself,  I  had 
learned  to  form  high  expectations  from  Mr.  Tait’s  philo¬ 
sophic  spirit  and  his  determined  hostility  to  traditional 
cant.  He  had  recorded,  in  the  communications  made  to 
myself,  with  great  minuteness  and  anxiety  for  rigor  ot 
accuracy,  the  cases  of  more  than  ninety  patients.  And 
he  had  shown  himself  inexorably  deaf  to  all  attempts  at 
confounding  evils  specially  belonging  to  opium  as  a 
stimulant,  as  a  narcotic,  or  as  poison,  with  those  which 
Belong  to  opium  merely  as  a  cause  of  constipation  or 
other  ordinary  irregularities  in  the  animal  economy. 
Most  people  of  sedentary  habits,  but  amongst  such  people 
notoriously  those  who  think  much,  need  some  slight 
means  of  stimulating  the  watchwork  of  the  animal  sys¬ 
tem  into  action.  Neglect  of  such  means  will  of  course 
derange  the  health.  But  in  such  derangements  there  i? 
Uo  special  impeachment  of  opium  :  many  thousands  o.? 
Igentf  terminate  in  the  same  or  more  obstinate  derange 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPIUM-EATER. 


473 


merits,  unless  vigilantly  counteracted.  The  paramount 
mission  of  Mr.  Tait,  under  his  instructions  from  insur 
ance  offices,  as  I  interpreted  his  own  account  of  this  mis¬ 
sion,  was  to  report  firmly  and  decisively  upon  the  tend¬ 
encies  of  opium  in  relation  to  the  lengthening  or  short¬ 
ening  of  life.  At  that  point  where  his  proof-sheets  wen> 
interrupted  by  the  fatal  attack  of  fever,  he  had  not  en¬ 
tirely  finished  his  record  of  cases  ;  so  that  his  final  judg¬ 
ment  or  summing  up  had  not  commenced.  It  wras, 
however,  evident  to  me  in  what  channel  this  final  judg¬ 
ment  would  have  flowed.  To  a  certainity,  he  would 
have  authorized  his  clients  (the  insurance  offices)  to  dis 
miss  all  anxiety  as  to  the  life-abridging  tendencies  of 
opium.  But  he  would  have  pointed  their  jealousy  in 
another  direction  —  viz.,  this,  that  in  some  proportion 
of  cases  there  may  always  be  a  reasonable  ground  for 
suspecting,  not  the  opium  as  separately  in  itself  any 
cause  of  mischief,  but  the  opium  as  a  conjectural  indica¬ 
tion  of  some  secret  distress  or  irritation  that  had  fastened 
upon  the  system,  and  had  in  that  way  sought  relief ; 
cases,  in  short,  which  the  use  of  opium  had  not  caused, 
but  which,  on  the  contrary,  had  caused  the  use  of  opium; 
« —  opium  having  been  called  in  to  redress  or  to  relieve 
the  affection.  In  all  such  circumstances,  the  insurance 
office  is  entitled  to  call  for  a  frank  disclosure  of  the  ail¬ 
ment  ;  but  not,  as  hitherto,  entitled  to  assume  the  opium 
as  itself  an  ailment.  It  may  very  easily  have  happened, 
that  simply  the  genial  restoration  derived  from  opium,  it» 
power  ( f  qualifying  a  man  suddenly  to  face  (that  is, 
ipcn  an  hour’s  warning  to  face)  some  twelve  hours’  un- 
•„  snal  exertion,  qualifying  him  both  as  to  spirits  and  as 
©  strength  ;  or  again,  simply  tne  general  purpose  o  1 


474 


ADDITIONS  TO  THE 


seeking  relief  from  ennui,  or  tcedium  vitae  —  any  one  of 
these  motives  may  satisfactorily  account  for  the  applic¬ 
ant’s  having  resorted  to  opium.  He  might  reply  to  the 
office  in  Professor  Wilson’s  word  *  “  Gentlemen,  I  am  a 
Hedonist ;  and  if  you  must  know  why  I  take  opium,  that ’s 
the  reason  why.”  But  still  upon  every  admission  join 
a  candidate  that  he  took  opium,  it  would  be  a  prudeii! 
question  and  a  just  question  on  the  part  of  the  office,  to 
ask  “  why  ;  ”  and  in  what  circumstances  the  practice  had 
originated.  If  any  local  uneasiness,  then  would  arise  a 
natural  right  on  the  part  of  the  office  to  press  fora  surg¬ 
ical  examination.  But,  apart  from  such  special  cases,  it 
was  evident  that  this  acute  and  experienced  surgeon  saw 
no  reason  whatever  in  the  simple  practice  of  opium-eat¬ 
ing  for  hesitating  upon  a  life-insurance  proposal,  or  for 
exacting  a  higher  rate  of  premium. 

Here  I  pause.  The  reader  will  infer,  from  what  I 
have  now  said,  that  all  passages,  written  at  an  earlier 
period  under  cloudy  and  uncorrected  views  of  the  evil 
agencies  presumable  in  opium,  stand  retracted ;  although, 
shrinking  from  the  labor  of  altering  an  error  diffused  so 
widely  under  my  own  early  misconceptions  of  the  truth, 
1  have  suffered  them  to  remain  as  they  were.  My  gen¬ 
eral  views  upon  the  powers  and  natural  tendencies  of 
opium  were  all  supported  and  strengthened  by  this 
fortunate  advantage  of  a  professional  correspondence. 
J-Iy  special  doctrine  I  now  repeat  at  this  point  of 
valediction,  and  in  a  rememberable  form.  Lord  Ba« 
;on  said  once,  too  boldly  and  hazardously,  that  he  who 

*  From  the  Greek  word  for  voluptuous  pleasure  —  viz.,  Hedoiu 
‘HSo^tj)  —  Professor  Wilson  coined  the  English  word  Hedonist ,  whici 
ne  sometimes  applied  in  playful  reproach  to  myself  and  others. 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OTIUM -EATER. 


475 


discovers  the  secret  of  making  myrrh  soluble  by  human 
blood,  has  discovered  the  secret  of  immortal  life.  I  pro¬ 
pose  a  more  modest  form  of  magic  —  that  he  who  dis¬ 
covers  the  secret  of  stimulating  and  keeping  up  uninte?« 
mittingly  the  insensible  perspiration,  has  discovered  tire 
secret  of  intercepting  pulmonary  consumption* 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


What  is  the  deadest  of  things  earthly  ?  It  is,  sayi 
the  world,  ever  forward  and  rash,  “  a  door  nail.’ 
But  the  world  is  wrong.  There  is  a  thing  deader  than 
a  door  nail — viz.,  Gillman’s  Coleridge,  vol.  i.  Dead, 
more  dead,  most  dead  is  Gillman’s  Coleridge,  vol.  i., 
and  this  upon  more  arguments  than  one.  The  book 
has  clearly  not  completed  its  elementary  act  of  respi¬ 
ration  ;  the  systole  of  vol.  i.  is  absolutely  useless  and 
lost  without  the  diastole  of  that  vol.  ii.  which  is 
never  to  exist.  That  is  one  argument ;  and  perhaps 
this  second  argument  is  stronger.  Gillman’s  Col¬ 
eridge,  vol.  i.,  deals  rashly,  unjustly,  and  almost  ma¬ 
liciously  with  some  of  our  own  particular  friends ; 
and  yet,  until  late  in  this  summer,  Anno  Domini 
1844,  we  —  that  is,  neither  ourselves  nor  our  friends 
—  never  heard  of  its  existence.  Now,  a  sloth,  even 
without  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Waterton’s  evidence  to  his 
character,  w  ill  travel  faster  than  that ;  but  malice 
which  travels  fastest  of  all  things,  must  be  dead  and 
cold  at  starting  when  it  can  thus  have  lingered  in  the 
rear  for  six  years  ;  and  therefore,  though  the  world 
was  so  far  right,  that  people  do  say,  “  Dead  as  a  door 

Bail,”  yet  henceforward  the  weakest  of  these  people 

(476) 


COLERIDbS  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


477 


ivill  see  the  propriety  of  saying,  “  Dead  as  Gillman’s 
Coleridge.” 

The  reader  of  experience,  on  sliding  over  the  sur¬ 
face  of  this  opening  paragraph,  begins  to  think  there’s 
mischief  singing  in  the  upper  air.  No,  reader ;  not  a* 
all.  We  never  were  cooler  in  our  days.  And  this  wa 
protest,  that,  were  it  not  for  the  excellence  of  the  sub¬ 
ject,  —  Coleridge  and  Opium  Eating,  —  Mr.  Gillman 
would  have  been  dismissed  by  us  unnoticed.  Indeed, 
we  not  only  forgive  Mr.  Gillman,  but  we  have  a  kind¬ 
ness  for  him ;  and  on  this  account,  that  he  was  good, 
he  was  generous,  he  was  most  forbearing,  through 
twenty  years,  to  poor  Coleridge,  when  thrown  upon 
his  hospitality.  An  excellent  thing  that,  Mr.  Gillman, 
and  one  sufficient  to  blot  out  a  world  of  libels  on  our¬ 
selves.  But  still,  noticing  the  theme  suggested  by 
this  unhappy  vol.  i.,  we  are  forced  at  times  to  notice 
its  author.  Nor  is  this  to  be  regretted.  We  remem¬ 
ber  a  line  of  Horace  never  yet  properly  translated, 
viz.,  — 

“  Nec  scutica  dignum  horribili  sectere  flagello.” 

The  true  translation  of  which,  as  we  assure  the  un¬ 
learned  reader,  is,  “Nor  must  you  pursue  with  the 
horrid  knout  of  Christopher  that  man  who  merits  only 
a  switching.”  Very  true.  We  protest  against  all  at- 
empts  to  invoke  the  exterminating  knout,  for  that 
sends  a  man  to  the  hospital  for  two  months ;  but  you 
see  that  the  same  judicious  poet,  who  dissuades  an 
appeal  to  the  knout,  indirectly  recommends  the  switch 
ivhich,  indeed,  is  rather  pleasant  than  otherwise,  ami* 


478 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


ably  playful  in  some  of  its  little  caprices,  and,  in  ito 
worst,  suggesting  only  a  pennyworth  of  diachylon. 

We  begin  by  professing  with  hearty  sincerity  our 
tervent  admirat  on  of  the  extraordinary  man  who 
furnishes  the  theme  for  Mr.  Gillman’s  coup  d'essai  in 
biography.  He  was,  in  a  literary  sense,  our  brother  ; 
for  he  also  was  amongst  the  contributors  to  Bla^k- 
wood,  and  will,  we  presume  take  his  station  in  mat 
Blackwood  gallery  of  pcnraits  which  ir  a  century 
hence  will  possess  more  interest  for  xleilectuai 
Europe  than  any  merely  martial  series  of  portraits, 
or  any  gallery  of  statesmen  assembled  in  congress, 
except  as  regards  one  or  two  leaders ;  for  defunct 
major  generals  and  secondary  diplomatists,  when  their 
date  is  past,  awake  no  more  emotion  than  last  year’s 
advertisements  or  obsolete  directories  ;  whereas  those 
who  in  a  stormy  age  have  swept  the  harps  of  pas¬ 
sion,  of  genial  wit,  or  of  the  wrestling  and  gladiatorial 
reason,  become  more  interesting  to  men  when  they 
can  no  longer  be  seen  as  bodily  agents  than  even 
in  the  middle  chorus  of  that  intellectual  music  over 
which,  living,  they  presided. 

Of  this  great  camp  Coleridge  was  a  leader,  and 
fought  amongst  the  primipili ;  yet  comparatively  he 
is  still  unknown.  Heavy,  indeed,  are  the  arrears  still 
due  to  philosophic  curiosity  on  the  real  merits  and 
on  the  separate  merits  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge. 
Coleridge  as  a  poet,  Coleridge  as  a  philosopher,— 
how  extensive  are  those  questions,  if  those  were  all 
Amd  apon  neither  question  have  we  yet  any  investiga¬ 
tion,  auch  as,  by  compass  of  views,  by  research,  o* 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


47  £ 


even  by  earnestness  of  sympathy  with  the  subject, 
can  or  ought  to  satisfy  a  philosophic  demand.  Blind 
is  that  man  who  can  persuade  himself  that  the  interest 
in  Coleridge,  taken  as  a  total  object,  is  becoming  an 
obsolete  interest.  We  are  of  opinion  that  even  Milton, 
new  viewed  from  a  distance  of  two  centuries,  is  still 
inadequately  judged  or  appreciated  in  his  character  of 
poet,  of  patriot,  and  partisan,  or,  finally,  in  his  charac¬ 
ter  of  accomplished  scholar.  But  if  so,  how  much 
less  can  it  be  pretended  that  satisfaction  has  been 
rendered  to  the  claims  of  Coleridge !  for  upon  Miltnn 
libraries  have  been  written.  There  has  been  time  for 
the  malice  of  men,  for  the  jealousy  of  men,  for  the 
enthusiasm,  the  scepticism,  the  adoring  admiration  of 
men  to  expand  themselves.  There  has  been  room 
for  a  Bentley,  for  an  Addison,  for  a  Johnson,  for  a 
wicked  Lauder,  for  an  avenging  Douglas,  for  an  idol¬ 
izing  Chateaubriand  ;  and  yet,  after  all,  little  enough 
has  been  done  towards  any  comprehensive  estimate  of 
the  mighty  being  concerned.  Piles  of  materials  have 
oeen  gathered  to  the  ground  ;  but,  for  the  monument 
which  should  have  risen  from  these  materials,  neither 
the  fiist  stone  has  been  laid,  nor  has  a  qualified  archi¬ 
tect  yet  presented  his  credentials.  On  the  other  hand, 
upon  Coleridge  little  comparatively  has  yet  been 
written ;  whilst  the  separate  characters  on  which  the 
judgment  is  awaited  are  more  by  one  than  those 
which  Milton  sustained.  Coleridge,  also,  is  a  poet. 
Coleridge,  also,  was  mixed  up  with  the  fervent  politics 
of  his  age  —  an  age  how  memorably  reflecting  the 
revolutionary  agitations  of  Milton’s  age !  Coleridgej 
also,  was  an  extensive  ard  brilliant  scholar.  What 


480 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


ive r  might  be  the  separate  proportions  of  the  twc 
men  in  each  particular  department  of  tne  three  here 
noticed,  think  as  the  reader  will  upon  that  point,  sure 
we  are  that  either  subject  is  ample  enough  to  make  a 
strain  upon  the  amplest  faculties.  How  alarming, 
therefore,  for  any  honest  critic,  who  should  undertake 
this  later  subject  of  Coleridge,  to  recollect  that,  after 
pursuing  him  through  a  zodiac  of  splendors  corre¬ 
sponding  to  those  of  Milton  in  kind,  however  different 
in  degree,  —  after  weighing  him  as  a  poet,  as  a  philo¬ 
sophic  politician,  as  a  scholar, —  he  will  have  to  wheel 
after  him  into  another  orbit — into  the  unfathomable 
nimbus  of  transcendental  metaphysics  !  Weigh  him 
the  critic  must  in  the  golden  balance  of  philosophy  the 
most  abstruse,  —  a  balance  which  even  itself  requires 
weighing  previously, —  or  he  will  have  done  nothing  that 
can  be  received  for  an  estimate  of  the  composite  Coler¬ 
idge.  This  astonishing  man,  be  it  again  remembered, 
besides  being  an  exquisite  poet,  a  profound  political 
speculator,  a  philosophic  student  of  literature  through 
all  its  chambers  and  recesses,  was  also  a  circum 
navigator  on  the  most  pathless  waters  of  scholasticisn 
and  metaphysics.  He  had  sounded,  without  guiding 
charts,  the  secret  deeps  of  Proclus  and  Plotinus  ;  he 
had  laid  down  buoys  on  the  twilight  or  moonlight  ocean 
of  Jacob  Roehmen  ; 50  he  had  cruised  over  the  broad 
Atlantic  of  Kant  and  Schelling,  of  Fichte  and  Oken. 
Where  is  the  man  who  shall  be  equal  to  these  things  ? 

We  at  least  make  no  such  adventurous  effort ;  or 
if  ever  we  should  presume  to  do  so,  not  at  present 
Here  we  design  only  to  make  a  coasting  voyage  o. 
lurvey  round  the  headlands  and  most  conspicuou 


COLERiUJE  AND  oriUM  EATING 


481 


leamarks  of  our  subject  as  they  are  brought  forward 
by  Mr.  Gillman  or  collaterally  suggested  by  our  own 
reflections ;  and  especially  we  wish  to  say  a  word  or 
two  on  Coleridge  as  an  opium  eater. 

Naturally  the  first  point  to  which  we  direct  oui 
attention  is  the  history  and  personal  relations  of  Coler¬ 
idge.  Living  with  Mr.  Gillman  for  nineteen  years  as 
a  domesticated  friend,  Coleridge  ought  to  have  beea 
known  intimately.  And  it  is  reasonable  to  expect, 
from  so  much  intercourse,  some  additions  to  our 
.slender  knowledge  of  Coleridge’s  adventures,  (if  we 
rnay  use  so  coarse  a  word,)  and  of  the  secret  springs 
at  work  in  those  early  struggles  of  Coleridge  at  Cam¬ 
bridge,  London,  Bristdl,  which  have  been  rudely  told 
to  the  world,  and  repeatedly  told,  as  showy  romances, 
but  never  rationally  explained. 

The  anecdotes,  however,  which  Mr.  Gillman  has 
added  to  the  personal  history  of  Coleridge  are  as  little 
advantageous  to  the  effect  of  his  own  book  as  they  are 
to  the  interest  of  the  memorable  character  which  he 
seeks  to  illustrate.  Always  they  are  told  without 
grace,  and  generally  are  suspicious  in  their  details. 
Mr.  Gillman  we  believe  to  be  too  upright  a  man  for 
countenancing  any  untruth.  lie  has  been  deceived. 
For  example,  will  any  man  believe  this?  A  certain 
4  excellent  equestrian,”  falling  in  with  Coleridge  on 
horseback,  thus  accosted  him  :  “  Pray,  sir,  did  you 
neet  a  tailor  along  the  road?”  “A  tailor /”  am- 
iwered  Coleridge.  “  I  did  meet  a  person  answer  ing 
i ucli  a  description,  who  told  me  he  had  dropped  ha 
%oose  ;  that ,  if  I  rode  a  little  farther,  I  should  find  it. 

And  I  guess  hr,  must  have  meant  you."  In  Joe  Mill©? 

31 


*82 


COLEIUDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


fflis  story  would  read,  perhaps,  sufferably.  Joe  has  \ 
privilege ;  and  we  do  not  look  too  narrowly  into  the 
mouth  of  a  Joe  Millerism  ;  but  Mr.  Gillman,  writing 
the  life  of  a  philosopher,  and  no  jest  book,  is  under  a 
different  law  of  decorum.  That  retort,  however  which 
silences  the  jester,  it  may  seem,  must  be  a  good  one  j 
and  we  are  desired  to  believe  that  in  this  case  the 
baffled  assailant  rode  off  in  a  spirit  of  benign  candor, 
saying  aloud  to  himself,  like  the  excellent  philosophei 
that  he  evidently  was,  “  Caught  a  Tartar  !  ” 

But  another  story  of  a  sporting  baronet,  who  was 
besides  a  member  of  Parliament,  is  much  worse,  and 
altogether  degrading  to  Coleridge.  This  gentleman, 
by  way  of  showing  off  before  a  party  of  ladies,  is 
represented  as  insulting  Coleridge  by  putting  questions 
to  him  on  the  qualities  of  his  horse,51  so  as  to  draw  the 
animal’s  miserable  defects  into  public  notice,  and  then 
closing  his  display  by  demanding  what  he  would  take 
for  the  horse,  “  including  the  rider.”  The  supposed 
reply  of  Coleridge  might  seem  good  to  those  who  un¬ 
derstand  nothing  of  true  dignity  ;  for,  as  an  impromptu , 
it  was  smart,  and  even  caustic.  The  baronet,  it  seems, 
was  reputed  to  have  been  bought  by  the  minister ;  and 

the  reader  will  at  once  divine  that  the  retort  took  ad« 

/ 

antage  of  that  current  belief,  so  as  to  throw  back  the 
sarcasm,  by  proclaiming  that  neither  horse  nc?  rider 
had  a  price  placarded  in  the  market  at  which  any  man 
could  become  their  purchaser.  But  this  was  not  the 
temper  in  which  Coleridge  either  did  reply  or  could 
have  replied.  Coleridge  showed,  in  the  spirit  of  hii 
manner,  a  profound  sensibility  to  the  nature  of  a  gen 
leman ;  and  he  felt  too  justly  what  it  became  a  self 


COLERIDGE  J  ND  OPIUM  EATING. 


483 


respecting  person  to  say  ever  to  have  aped  the  sort  of 
flashy  fencing  which  might  seem  fine  to  a  theatrical 
blood. 

Another  story  is  self-refuted.  “  A  hired  partisan  * 
had  come  to  one  of  Coleridge’s  political  lectures  with 
the  express  purpose  of  bringing  the  lecturer  into 
trouble  ;  and  most  preposterously  he  laid  himself  open 
to  his  own  snare  by  refusing  to  pay  for  admission. 
Spies  must  be  poor  artists  who  proceed  thus.  Upon 
which  Coleridge  remarked,  “  that,  before  the  gen¬ 
tleman  kicked  up  a  dust,  surely  he  would  down  with 
the  dust.”  So  far  the  story  will  not  do.  But  what 
follows  is  possible  enough.  The  same  “  hired  ”  gen¬ 
tleman,  by  way  of  giving  unity  to  the  tale,  is  described 
as  having  hissed.  Upon  this  a  cry  arose  of  “  Turn 
him  out !  ”  But  Coleridge  interfered  to  protect  him. 
He  insisted  on  the  man’s  right  to  hiss  if  he  thought  fit ; 
it  was  legal  to  hiss ;  it  was  natural  to  hiss :  “For  what 
is  to  be  expected,  gentlemen,  when  the  cool  waters  of 
reason  come  in  contact  with  redhot  aristocracy,  but  a 
hiss  ?  ”  Euge  ! 

Amongst  all  the  anecdotes,  however,  of  this  splendifi 
man,  often  trivial,  often  incoherent,  often  unauthenti- 
:ated,  there  is  one  which  strikes  us  as  both  true  and 
interesting;  and  we  are  grateful  to  Mr.  Gill  man  for 
oreserving  it.  We  find  it  introduced,  and  partially  au¬ 
thenticated,  by  the  following  sentence  from  Coleridge 
himself:  “From  eight  to  fourteen  I  was  a  playless 
4aydreamer,  a  helluo  librorum ,  my  appetite  for  which 
vas  indulged  by  a  singular  incident.  A  stranger,  who 
vas  struck  by  my  conversation,  made  me  free  of  a 
circulating  library  in  King  s  Street,  Cheapside.”  Thfl 


*84 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


more  :ircumstantial  explanation  of  Mr.  Gillman  is  this 
4  The  incident,  indeed,  was  singular.  Going  down  the 
Strane  in  one  of  his  daydreams,  fancying  himself 
swimming  across  the  Hellespont,  thrusting  his  hanus 
before  him  as  in  the  act  of  swimming,  his  hand  cams 
in  contact  with  a  gentleman’s  pocket.  The  gentleman 
seized  his  hand  :  turning  round  and  looking  at  him 
with  some  anger,  —  ‘What!  so  young,  and  yet  so 
wicked  ?  ’  at  the  same  time  accusing  him  of  an  attempt 
to  pick  his  pocket.  The  frightened  boy  sobbed  out  his 
denial  of  the  intention,  and  explained  to  him  how  he 
thought  himself  Leander  swimming  across  the  Helles¬ 
pont.  The  gentleman  was  so  struck  and  delighted 
with  the  novelty  of  the  thing  and  with  the  simplicity 
and  intelligence  of  the  boy  that  he  subscribed,  as  be¬ 
fore  stated,  to  the  library ;  in  consequence  of  which 
Coleridge  was  further  enabled  to  indulge  his  love  of 
reading.” 

We  fear  that  this  slovenly  narrative  is  the  very  per¬ 
fection  of  bad  story  telling.  But  the  story  itself  is 
striking,  and,  by  the  very  oddness  of  the  incidents,  not 
likely  to  have  been  invented.  The  effect,  from  the  po¬ 
sition  of  tf  3  two  parties,  —  on  the  one  side  a  simple 
child  from  Devonshire,  dreaming  in  the  Strand  that  he 
was  swimming  over  from  Sestos  to  Abydos,  and,  on 
the  other  the  experienced  man,  dreaming  only  of  this 
world,  its  knaves  and  its  thieves,  but  still  kind  and  gen- 
trous,  —  is  beautiful  and  picturesque.  0,  si  sic  omnia  / 

But  tha  most  interesting  to  us  of  the  personalitiu 
i*onnected  with  Coleridge  are  his  feuds  and  his  persona 
dislikes.  Incomprehensible  to  us  is  the  war  of  exter 
*ination  which  Coleridge  made  upon  the  political  econ 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


485 


mnuts.  Did  Sir  James  Steuart,  in  speaking  of  vine 
dresisers,  (not  as  vine  dressers,  but  generally  as  cuiti* 
rato^s, )  tell  his  readers,  that,  if  such  a  man  simply  re 
placed  his  own  consumption,  having  no  surplus  what¬ 
ever  or  increment  for  the  public  capital,  he  could  no! 
de  considered  a  useful  citizen,  not  the  beast  in  the 
Revelation  is  held  up  by  Coleridge  as  more  hateful  to 
the  spirit  of  truth  than  the  Jacobite  baronet.  And  yet 
we  know  of  an  author  —  viz.,  one  S.  T.  Coleridge  — 
who  repeated  that  same  doctrine  without  finding  any 
evil  in  it.  Look  at  the  first  part  of  the  Wallenstein , 
where  Count  Isolani  having  said,  u  Poh  !  we  are  all 
hi3  subjects,”  i.  e .,  soldiers,  (though  unproductive  la¬ 
borers,)  not  less  than  productive  peasants,  the  em- 
peior’s  envoy  replies,  “  Yet  with  a  difference,  gen¬ 
era!  \  ”  and  the  difference  implies  Sir  James’s  scale, 
his  vine  dresser  being  the  equatorial  case  between  the 
two  extremes  of  the  envoy.  Malthus  again,  in  his  pop¬ 
ulation  book,  contends  for  a  mathematic  difference  be¬ 
tween  animal  and  vegetable  life  in  respect  to  the  law 
of  increase  ;  as  though  the  first  increased  by  geometri¬ 
cal  ratios,  the  last  by  arithmetical !  No  proposition 
more  worthy  of  laughter,  since  both,  when  permitted 
to  expand,  increase  by  geometrical  ratios,  and  the  latter 
by  much  higher  ratios  ;  whereas  Malthus  persuaded 
himself  of  his  crotchet  simply  by  refusing  the  requisite 
condition  in  the  vegetable  case  and  granting  it  in  the 
other.  If  you  take  a  few  grains  of  wheat,  and  are  re¬ 
quired  to  plant  all  successive  generations  of  their 
produce  in  the  same  flower  po*  forever,  of  course  you 
%eutralize  its  expansion  by  your  own  act  of  arbitrary 
mitation.52  But  so  you  would  do  i.*you  tried  the  caM 


43b  COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 

of  animal  increase  by  still  exterminating  all  but  one 
replacing  couple  of  parents.  This  is  not  to  try,  but 
merely  a  pretence  of  trying,  one  order  of  powers 
against  another.  That  was  folly.  But  Coleridge  com¬ 
bated  this  idea  in  a  manner  so  obscure  that  nobody 
understood  it.  And  leaving  these  speculative  conun¬ 
drums,  in  coming  to  the  great  practical  interests  afloat 
in  the  poor  laws,  Coleridge  did  so  little  real  work 
that  he  left,  as  a  res  Integra ,  to  Dr.  Alison,  the  capi¬ 
tal  argument  that  legal  and  adequate  provision  for  the 
poor,  whether  impotent  poor  or  poor  accidentally  out 
of  work,  does  not  extend  pauperism  ;  no  ;  but  is  the 
one  great  resource  for  putting  it  down.  Dr.  Alison’s 
ovei whelming  and  experimental  manifestations  of  that 
truth  Lave  prostrated  Malthus  and  his  generation  for¬ 
ever.  This  comes  of  not  attending  to  the  Latin  maxim, 
"Hoc  age,”  (Mind  the  object  before  you.)  Dr.  Ali¬ 
son,  a  wise  man,  “  hoc  egit ;  ”  Coleridge  “  aliud  egit.” 
And  we  see  the  result.  In  a  case  which  suited  him 
ty  interesting  his  peculiar  feeling,  Coleridge  could 
'.omrrand 


“Attention  full  ten  times  as  much  as  there  needs.” 


But  uarch  documents,  value  evidence,  or  thresh  out 
bushes  of  statistical  tables,  Coleridge  could  not,  any 
more  than  he  could  ride  with  Elliot’s  dragoons. 

Another  instance  of  Coleridge’s  inaptitude  for  such 
studies  as  political  economy  is  found  in  his  fancy,  by 
no  means  u  rich  and  rare,”  but  meagre  and  trite,  thak 
Sixes  can  never  injure  public  prosperity  by  mere  e* 
of  quantity.  If  they  injure,  we  are  to  conclude 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


487 


ihat  it  must  be  by  then*  quality  and  mode  of  operation 
or  by  their  false  appropriation,  (as,  for  instance,  if 
they  are  i-ent  out  of  the  country  and  spent  abroad  ;) 
because,  says  Coleridge,  if  the  taxes  are  exhaled  from 
the  country  as  vapors,  back  they  come  in  drenching 
showers.  Twenty  pounds  ascend  in  a  Scotch  mist  to 
the  ;hancellor  of  the  exchequer  from  .Leeds  ;  but  does 
it  evaporate?  Not  at  all.  By  return  of  post,  down 
comes  an  order  for  twenty  pounds’  worth  of  Leeds 
cloth  on  account  of  government,  seeing  that  the  poor 

men  of  the - th  regiment  want  new  gaiters.  True  ; 

but,  of  this  return  twenty  pounds,  not  more  than  four 
will  be  profit  —  i.  e .,  surplus  accruing  to  the  public  capi¬ 
tal  ;  whereas  of  the  original  twenty  pounds  every  shil¬ 
ling  was  surplus.  The  same  unsound  fancy  has  been 
many  times  brought  forward,  often  in  England,  often 
in  France  ;  but  it  is  curious  that  its  first  appearance  upon 
any  stage  was  precisely  two  centuries  ago,  when  as  yet 
political  economy  slept  with  the  pre-Adamites  —  viz.,  in 
the  Long  Parliament.  In  a  quarto  volume  of  the  de¬ 
bates  during  1644-45,  printed  as  an  independent  work, 
will  be  found  the  same  identical  doctrine,  supported 
very  sonorously  by  the  same  little  love  of  an  illustra 
lion  from  the  seesaw  of  mist  and  rain. 

Political  economy  was  not  Coleridge’s  forte.  In 
politics  he  was  happier.  In  mere  personal  politics  he 
(like  every  man,  when  reviewed  from  a  station  distant 
by  forty  years)  will  often  appear  to  have  erred ;  nay, 
he  will  be  detected  and  nailed  in  error.  But  this  is 
he  necessity  of  us  ah.  Keen  are  the  refutations  of 
ime  ;  and  absolute  results  to  oosterity  are  the  fatal 
ouchstone  of  opinions  in  tne  past.  It  is  undeniable., 


188 


COLERIDGE  AXD  OPIUM  EATfXG. 


besides,  that  Coleridge  had  strong  personal  antipathies 
for  instance,  to  Messrs.  Pitt  and  Dundas.  Yet  why 
we  never  could  understand.  We  once  heard  him  tel 
a  story  upon  Windermere  to  the  late  Mr.  Cunven 
then  M.  P.  for  Workington,  which  was  meant  appar 
ently  to  account  for  this  feeling.  The  story  amounted 
to  this,  that,  when  a  freshman  at  Cambridge,  Mr.  Pitt 
had  wantonly  amused  himself  at  a  dinner  party,  in 
Trinity,  in  smashing  with  filberts  (discharged  in 
showers  like  grape  shot)  a  most  costly  dessert  set 
of  cut  glass ;  from  which  Samuel  Taylor.  Coleridge 
argued  a  principle  of  destructiveness  in  his  cerebellum , 
Now,  if  this  dessert  set  belonged  to  some  poor  suffer¬ 
ing  Trinitarian,  and  not  to  himself,  we  are  of  opinion 
that  he  was  faulty,  and  ought,  upon  his  own  great 
subsequent  maxim,  to  have  been  coerced  into  “  indem¬ 
nity  for  the  past  and  security  for  the  future.”  Bui, 
besides  that  this  glassy  mytlius  belongs  to  an  era  fit- 
teen  years  earlier  than  Coleridge’s,  so  as  to  justify  a 
shadow  of  scepticism,  we  really  cannot  find  in  such 
an  escapade  under  the  boiling  blood  of  youth  any 
•.ufficient  justification  of  that  withering  malignity  to¬ 
wards  the  name  of  Pitt  which  runs  through  Coleridge’s 
famous  Fire ,  Famine,  and  Slaughter .  As  this  little 
viperous  jeu  d' esprit  (published  anonymously)  subse¬ 
quently  became  the  subject  of  a  celebrated  after-dinner 
discussion  in  London  at  which  Coleridge  ( comme  de 
raison )  was  the  chief  speaker,  the  reader  of  this  gener¬ 
ation  may  wish  to  know  the  question  at  issue  ;  and,  in 
*rder  to  judge  of  that ,  he  must  know  the  outline  of 
\hi3  devil’s  squib.  The  writer  brings  upon  the  scene 
b  ee  pleasant  young  ladies  —  viz..  Miss  Fire.  Misi 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIDM  EATING. 


489 


Famine,  and  Miss  Slaughter.  “  What  are  you  ip  to  ? 
What’s  the  row  ?  ”  we  may  suppose  to  be  the  intro- 
luctory  question  of  the  poet.  And  the  answer  of  the 
ladies  makes  us  aware  that  they  are  fresh  from  larking 
in  Ireland  and  in  France.  A  glorious  spree  they  had ; 
ots  of  fun,  and  laughter  d  discretion .  At  all  times 
grains  puellce  risus  ab  angulo ;  so  that  we  listen  io 
their  little  gossip  with  interest.  They  had  been  setting 
men,  it  seems,  by  the  ears ;  and  the  drollest  little 
atrocities  they  do  certainly  report.  Not  but  we  have 
seen  better  in  the  Nenagh  paper,  so  far  as  Ireland  ia 
concerned  ;  but  the  pet  little  joke  was  in  La  Vendee. 
Miss  Famine,  who  is  the  girl  for  our  money,  raises  the 
question,  whether  any  of  them  can  tell  the  name  of 
the  leader  and  prompter  to  these  high  jinks  of  hell ;  if 
bo,  let  her  whisper  it. 

“  Whisper  it,  sister,  so  and  so, 

In  a  dark  hint,  distinct  and  low.” 

Upon  which  the  playful  Miss  Slaughter  replies,  — 

“  Letters  four  do  form  his  name. 

*  *  *  * 

He  came  by  stealth  and  unlocked  my  den ; 

And  I  have  drunk  the  blood  since  then 
Of  thrice  three  hundred  thousand  men.” 

i>Aod;  but  the  stingo!  the  hornet  lies  in  the  conclusion, 
if  this  quadriliteral  man  had  done  so  much  for  Mm, 
(though,  really,  we  think  65.  &d.  might  have  settled  his 
tlaim,)  what,  says  Fire,  setting  her  arms  akimbo,  would 
hey  do  for  him  ?  Slaughter  replies,  rather  crustily, 
hat,  as  far  as  a  good  kicking  \iould  go,  or  (says  Fam 
ne)  a  little  matter  of  tearing  to  pieces  bv  the  mob, 


490 


COLERIDGE  AND  ODIUM  EATING. 


they  would  be  glad  to  t&ke  tickets  at  his  benefit 
How,  you  bitches  !  ”  says  Fire.  “  Is  that  ail  ? 

“  I  alone  am  faithful ;  I 
Cling  to  him  everlastingly." 

The  sentiment  is  diabolica  ;  and  the  question  argued 
at  the  London  dinner  table  was,  Could  the  writer  have 
been  other  than  a  devil  ?  The  dinner  was  at  the  late 
excellent  Mr.  Sotheby’s,  known  advantageously  in  those 
days  as  the  translator  of  Wieland’s  Oberon.  Several 
of  the  great  guns  amongst  the  literary  body  were  pres¬ 
ent —  in  particular,  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  and  he,  we  be¬ 
lieve,  with  his  usual  good  nature,  took  the  apologetic 
side  of  the  dispute  ;  in  fact,  he  was  in  the  secret. 
Nobody  else,  barring  the  author,  knew  at  first  whose 
good  name  was  at  stake.  The  scene  must  have  been 
high.  The  company  kicked  about  the  poor  diabolic 
writer’s  head  as  if  it  had  been  a  tennis  ball.  Coler¬ 
idge,  the  yet  unknown  criminal,  absolutely  perspired 
and  fumed  in  pleading  for  the  defendant ;  the  company 
demurred ;  the  orator  grew  urgent ;  wits  began  to 
smoke  the  case,  as  active  verbs  —  the  advocate  to  smoke , 
as  a  neuter  verb  ;  the  “fun  grew  fast  and  furious;” 
until  at  length  delinquent  arose,  burning  tears  in  his 
eyes,  and  confessed  to  an  audience,  (now  bursting  with 
stifled  laughter,  but  whom  he  supposed  to  be  bursting 
with  fiery  indignation,)  “  Lo,  I  am  he  that  wrote  it !  ” 
For  our  own  part,  we  side  with  Coleridge.  Malice 
not  always  of  the  heart ;  there  is  a  malice  of  the 
Understanding  and  the  fancy.  Neither  do  we  think 
the  worse  of  a  man  for  having  invented  the  most  horri 
el©  and  old  woman  troibling  curse  that  demons  eve? 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


491 


fistcned  to.  We  are  too  apt  to  swear  horribly  our 
selves  ;  and  often  have  we  frightened  the  cat  —  to  say 
nothing  of  the  kettle  —  by  our  shocking  (far  too  shock¬ 
ing)  oaths. 

There  were  other  celebrated  men  whom  Coleridge 
detested,  or  seemed  to  detest  —  Paley,  Sir  Sidney 
Smith,  Lord  Hutchinson,  (the  last  Lord  Donoughmore,) 
and  Cuvier.  To  Paley  it  might  seem  as  if  his  antipa* 
thy  had  been  purely  philosophic ;  but  we  believe  that 
partly  it  was  personal ;  and  it  tallies  with  this  belief, 
that,  in  his  earliest  political  tracts,  Coleridge  charged 
the  archdeacon  repeatedly  with  his  own  joke,  as  if  it 
had  been  a  serious  saying  —  viz.,  “  that  he  could  not 
afford  to  keep  a  conscience  ;  ”  such  luxuries,  like  a 
carriage  for  instance,  being  obviously  beyond  the 
finances  of  poor  men. 

With  respect  to  the  philosophic  question  between  the 
parties  as  to  the  grounds  of  moral  election,  we  hcpe  it 
is  no  treason  to  suggest  that  both  were  perhaps  in  error. 
Against  Paley,  it  occurs  at  once  that  he  himself  would 
not  have  made  consequences  the  practical  test  in  valu¬ 
ing  the  morality  of  an  act,  since  these  can  very  seldom 
be  traced  at  all  up  to  the  final  stages,  and  in  the  earli¬ 
est  stages  are  exceedingly  different  under  different  cir¬ 
cumstances  ;  so  that  the  same  act,  tried  by  its  conse¬ 
quences,  would  bear  a  fluctuating  appreciation.  This 
could  not  have  been  Paley’s  revised  meaning  ;  conse- 
\uently,  had  he  been  pressed  by  opposition,  it  would 
nave  come  out  that  by  test  he  meant  only  speculative 
est  —  a  very  harmless  doctrine,  certainly,  but  useless 
*nd  impertinent  to  any  purpose  of  his  system.  The 
eader  may  catch  our  meaning  id  the  following  illua 


m 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATDXJ. 


tration.  It  is  a  matter  of  general  belief  that  happi 
ness,  upon  the  whole,  follows  in  a  higher  degree  from 
constant  integrity  than  from  the  closest  attention  to  self- 
interest.  Now,  happiness  is  one  of  those  consequence! 
which  Paley  meant  by  final  or  remotest ;  but  we  could 
never  use  this  idea  as  an  exponent  of  integrity  or  in¬ 
terchangeable  criterion,  because  happiness  cannot  be 
ascertained  or  appreciated  except  upon  long  tracts  of 
time,  whereas  the  particular  act  of  integrity  depends 
continually  upon  the  election  of  the  moment.  No 
man,  therefore,  could  venture  to  lay  down  as  a  rule, 
Do  what  makes  you  happy  ;  use  this  as  your  test  of 
actions,  satisfied  that  in  that  case  always  you  will  do 
the  thing  which  is  right ;  for  he  cannot  discern  independ¬ 
ently  what  will  make  him  happy  ;  and  he  must  decide 
on  the  spot.  The  use  of  the  nexus  between  morality 
and  happiness  must,  therefore,  be  inverted  ;  it  is  not 
practical  or  prospective,  but  simply  retrospective  ;  and 
in  that  form  it  says  no  more  than  the  good  old  rules 
hallowed  in  every  cottage.  But  this  furnishes  no  prac¬ 
tical  guide  for  moral  election  which  a  man  had  not 
before  he  ever  thought  of  this  nexus.  In  the  sense  in 
which  it  is  true,  we  need  not  go  to  the  professor’s  chair 
for  this  maxim  ;  in  the  sense  in  which  it  would  serve 
Paley,  it  is  absolutely  false. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  against  Coleridge,  it  is  certain 
that  many  acts  could  be  mentioned  which  are  judged 
to  be  good  or  bad  only  because  their  consequences 
are  known  to  be  so,  whilst  the  great  catholic  acts  of 
life  are  entirely  (and,  if  we  may  so  phrase  it,  haugh 
tily)  independent  of  consequences.  For  instance, 
fidelity  to  a  trust  is  a  law  of  immutable  morahtj 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


493 


lubject  to  no  casuistry  whatever.  You  have  been  left 
executor  to  a  friend  ;  you  are  to  pay  over  his  last 
legacy  to  X,  though  a  dissolute  scoundrel ;  and  you  are 
to  give  no  shilling  of  it  to  the  poor  brother  of  X 
though  a  good  man  and  a  wise  man,  struggling  with 
adversity.  You  are  absolutely  excluded  from  all  con¬ 
templation  of  results.  It  was  your  deceased  friend’s 
right  to  make  the  will ;  it  is  yours  simply  to  see  it  exe- 
cuted.  Now,  in  opposition  to  this  primary  class  of 
actions  stands  another,  such  as  the  habit  of  intoxica" 
tion,  which  is  known  to  be  wrong  only  by  observing 
the  consequences.  If  drunkenness  did  not  terminate, 
after  some  years,  in  producing  bodily  weakness,  irrita¬ 
bility  in  the  temper,  and  so  forth,  it  would  not  be  a 
vicious  act ;  and  .accordingly,  if  a  transcendent  motive 
should  arise  in  favor  of  drunkenness,  as  that  it  would 
enable  you  to  face  a  degree  of  cold  or  contagion  else 
menacing  to  life,  a  duty  would  arise,  pro  hac  vice ,  of 
getting  drunk.  We  had  an  amiable  friend  who  suffered 
under  the  infirmity  of  cowardice  ;  an  awful  coward  he 
was  when  sober ;  but,  when  very  drunk,  he  had  cour¬ 
age  enough  for  the  Seven  Champions  of  Christendom. 
Therefore  in  an  emergency,  where  he  knew  himself 
suddenly  loaded  with  the  responsibility  of  defending  a 
family,  we  approved  highly  of  his  getting  drunk.  But 
to  violate  a  trust  could  never  become  right  under  any 
change  of  circumstances.  Coleridge,  however,  alto¬ 
gether  overlooked  this  distinction  ;  which  on  the  other 
hand,  stirring  in  Paley’s  mind,  but  never  brought  out  to 
distinct  consciousness,  nor  ever  investigated,  nor  lim 
tied,  has  undermined  his  system.  Perhaps  it  is  not 
rery  important  how  a  man  theorizes  upon  morality , 


494 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


happily  for  us  all,  God  has  left  no  man  in  such  que» 
tions  practically  to  the  guidance  of  his  understanding 
but  still,  considering  that  academic  bodies  are  partly 
instituted  for  the  support  of  speculative  truth  as  well  as 
truth  practical,  we  must  think  it  a  blot  upon  the  splen¬ 
dor  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  that  both  of  them,  in  a 
Christian  land,  make  Paley  the  foundation  of  their 
ethics,  the  alternative  being  Aristotle.  And  in  our 
mind,  though  far  inferior  as  a  moralist  to  the  Stoics 
Aristotle  is  often  less  of  a  pagan  than  Paley. 

Coleridge’s  dislike  to  Sir  Sidney  Smith  and  the 
Egyptian  Lord  Hutchinson  fell  under  the  category 
of  Martial’s  case  :  — 

“  Non  amo  te,  Sabidi,  nec  possum  dicere  quare  ; 

Hoc  solum  novi  —  non  amo  te,  Sabidi.” 

Against  Lord  Hutchinson  we  never  heard  him  plead 
any  thing  of  moment  except  that  he  was  finically 
Frenchified  in  his  diction  ;  of  which  he  gave  this  in¬ 
stance  :  that  having  occasion  to  notice  a  brick  wall 
(which  was  literally  that ,  not  more  and  not  less,) 
when  reconnoitring  the  French  defences,  he  called  it 
a  revetement .  And  we  ourselves  remember  his  using 
the  French  word  gloriole  rather  ostentatiously  —  that 
is,  when  no  particular  emphasis  attached  to  the  case. 
But  every  man  has  his  foibles ;  and  few,  perhaps,  are 
less  conspicuously  annoying  than  this  of  Lord  Hutch¬ 
inson.  Sir  Sidney’s  crimes  were  less  distinctly  re 
denied  to  our  mind.  As  to  Cuvier,  Coleridge’s  hatred 
of  him  was  more  to  our  taste  ;  for  (though  quite  unrea 
ionable,  we  fear)  it  took  the  shape  of  patriotism.  He 
insisted  on  it  that  our  British  John  Hunter  was  the  gen 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


495 


aine  article,  and  that  Cuvier  was  a  humbug.  Now 
speaking  privately  to  the  public,  we  cannot  go  quite  so 
far  as  that ;  but,  when  publicly  we  address  that  most 
respectable  character,  en  grand  costume ,  we  always 
mean  to  back  Coleridge  •  for  we  are  a  horrible  John 
Bull  ourselves.  As  Joseph  Hume  observes,  it  makes 
no  difference  to  us  —  right  or  wrong,  black  or  white  — 
when  our  countrymen  are  concerned  ;  and  John  Hunter, 
notwithstanding  he  had  a  bee  in  his  bonnet,53  was  really 
a.  great  man  ;  though  it  will  not  follow  that  Cuvier  must 
therefore  have  been  a  little  one.  We  do  not  pretend 
to  be  acquainted  with  the  tenth  part  of  Cuvier’s  per¬ 
formances  ;  but  we  suspect  that  Coleridge’s  range  in 
that  respect  was  not  much  greater  than  our  own. 

Other  cases  of  monomaniac  antipathy  we  might  re¬ 
vive  from  our  recollections  of  Coleridge  had  we  a  suf¬ 
ficient  motive  ;  but  in  compensation,  and  by  way  of 
redressing  the  balance,  he  had  many  strange  likings,— 
equally  monomaniac,  —  and,  unaccountably,  he  chose 
to  exhibit  his  whimsical  partialities  by  dressing  up,  as 
it  were,  in  his  own  clothes  such  a  set  of  scarecrows  as 
eye  has  not  beheld.  Heavens  !  what  an  ark  of  unclean 
beasts  would  have  been  Coleridge’s  private  menagerie 
of  departed  philosophers  could  they  all  have  been  trot¬ 
ted  out  in  succession  !  But  did  the  reader  feel  thorn  to 
be  the  awful  oores  which,  in  fact,  they  were  ?  No  * 
because  Coleridge  had  blown  upon  these  withered  anat- 
>rnies,  through  the  b]owpipe  of  his  own  creative  genius, 
t  stream  of  gas  that  swelled  the  tissue  of  their  ante¬ 
diluvian  wrinkles,  forced  color  upon  their  cheeks  and 
pplendor  upon  their  sodden  eyes.  Such  a  proce  ss  of 
entriloquism  never  has  existed.  He  spoke  by  theij 


196 


COLERIDGE  AND  OriUM  EATING 


©rgans  ;  they  were  the  tubes  ;  and  he  forced  throv.gi 
tfieir  wooden  machinery  his  own  Beethoven  harmonies. 

First  came  Dr.  Andrew  Bell.  We  knew  him.  Was 
ne  dull  ?  Is  a  wooden  spoon  dull  ?  Fishy  were  his 
eyes;  torpedinous  was  his  manner;  and  his  main  idea, 
out  of  two  which  he  ~eally  had,  related  to  the  moon  — 
from  which  you  infer,  perhaps,  that  he  was  lunatic. 
By  no  means.  It  was  no  craze,  under  the  influence  of 
the  moon,  which  possessed  him ;  it  was  an  idea  of 
mere  hostility  to  the  moon.  The  Madras  people,  like 
many  others,  had  an  idea  that  she  influenced  the 
leather.  Subsequently  the  Herschels,  senior  and  jun¬ 
ior,  systematized  this  idea  ;  and  then  the  wrath  of  An¬ 
drew,  previously  in  a  crescent  state,  actually  dilated  to 
a  plenilunar  orb.  The  Westmoreland  people  (for  at 
the  lakes  it  was  we  knew  him)  expounded  his  condi¬ 
tion  to  us  by  saying  that  he  was  “  maffled  ;  ”  which 
word  means  u  perplexed  in  the  extreme.”  His  wrath 
did  not  pass  into  lunacy  ;  it  produced  simple  distraction; 
an  uneasy  fumbling  with  the  idea  —  like  that  of  an  old 
superannuated  dog  who  longs  to  worry,  but  cannot  for 
want  of  teeth.  In  this  condition  you  will  judge  that  he 
was  rather  tedious  ;  and  in  this  condition  Coleridge 
took  him  up.  Andrew’s  other  idea,  because  he  had 
two,  related  to  education.  Perhaps  six  sevenths  of  that 
llso  came  from  Madras.  No  matter  ;  Coleridge  took 
that  up  ;  Southey  also ;  but  Southey  with  his  usual 
temperate  fervor.  Coleridge,  on  the  other  hand,  found 
celestial  marvels  both  in  the  scheme  and  in  the  man. 
Then  commenced  the  apotheosis  of  Andrew  Bell ;  and 
because  it  happened  that  his  opponent,  Lancaster,  be- 
ween  ourse.ves,  reallv  had  stolen  his  ideas  from  Bell, 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


497 


fcfiat  between  the  sad  w  ckedness  of  Lancaster  and  the 
celestial  transfiguration  of  Bell,  gradually  Coleridge 
heated  himself  to  such  an  extent  that  people,  when 
referring  to  that  subject,  asked  each  ether,  “  Have  you 
heard  Coleridge  lecture  on  Bel  and  the  Dragon  7  ” 

The  next  man  glorified  by  Coleridge  was  John  Wool 
man,  the  Quaker.  Him,  though  we  once  possessed  his? 
works,  it  cannot  be  truly  affirmed  that  we  ever  read. 
Try  to  read  John  we  often  did  ;  but  read  John  we  did 
not.  This,  however,  you  say,  rroght  be  our  fault,  and 
not  John’s.  Very  likely  ;  and  we  have  a  notion  that 
now,  with  our  wiser  thoughts,  we  should  read  John  if 
he  were  here  on  this  table.  It  is  certain  that  he  was  a 
good  man,  and  one  of  the  earliest  in  America,  if  not 
in  Christendom,  who  lifted  up  his  hand  to  protest 
against  the  slave  trade  ;  but  still  we  suspect  that,  had 
John  been  all  that  Coleridge  represented,  he  would  not 
have  repelled  us  from  reading  his  travels  in  the  fearful 
way  that  he  did.  But  again  we  beg  pardon,  and  en¬ 
treat  the  earth  of  Virginia  to  lie  light  upon  the  remains 
of  John  Woolman  ;  for  he  was  an  Israelite,  indeed,  in 
whom  there  was  no  guile. 

The  third  person  raised  to  divine  honors  by  Col¬ 
eridge  was  Bowyer,  the  master  of  Christ’s  Hospital, 
London  —  a  man  whose  name  rises  into  the  nostrils  of 
all  who  knew  him  with  the  gracious  odor  of  a  tallow 
chandler’s  melting  house  upon  melting  day?  and  whose 
memory  is  embalmed  in  the  hearty  detestation  of  ail 
his  pupi.s.  Coleridge  describes  this  man  as  a  pro¬ 
found  entis.  Our  idea  of  him  is  different.  We  are 
af  opinion  that  Bowyer  was  the  greatest  villain  of  the 
lighteenth  century.  We  may  be  wrong  ;  but  we  can 

32 


498 


COLERIDGE  AXD  ODIUM  EATING. 


not  be  far  wrong.  Talk  of  knoutlng  indeed  !  which 
we  did  at  the  beginning  of  this  paper  in  the  mere 
playfulness  of  our  hearts,  —  and  which  the  great  mas¬ 
ter  of  the  knout,  Christopher,  who  visited  men’s  tres¬ 
passes  like  the  Eumenides,  never  resorted  to  but  in 
love  for  some  great  idea  which  had  been  outraged,  *— 
why,  this  man  knouted  his  way  through  life,  frena 
bloody  youth  up  to  truculent  old  age.  Grim  idol ! 
whose  altars  reeked  with  children’s  blood,  and  whose 
dreadful  eyes  never  smiled  except  as  the  stern  goddess 
of  the  Thugs  smiles  when  the  sound  of  human  lamen¬ 
tations  inhabits  her  ears.  So  much  had  the  monstei 
*  fed  upon  this  great  idea  of  14  flogging,”  and  transmuted 
it  into  the  very  nutriment  of  his  heart,  that  he  seems  to 
have  conceived  the  gigantic  project  of  flogging  aii 
mankind  ;  nay,  worse  ;  for  Mr.  Gillman,  on  Coleridge’s 
authority,  tells  us  (p.  24)  the  following  anecdote :  — 

44  4  Sirrah ,  TU  flog  you'  were  words  so  familiar  to 
him,  that  on  one  occasion  some  female  friend  of  one 
of  the  boys  ”  (who  had  come  on  an  errand  of  inter 
cession)  44  still  lingering  at  the  door,  after  having  been 
abruptly  told  to  go,  Bowyer  exclaimed,  4  Bring  that 
woman  here,  and  I’ll  flog  her.’  ” 

To  this  horrid  incarnation  of  whips  and  scourges, 
Coleridge,  in  his  Biographia  Literaria ,  ascribes  ideas 
upon  criticism  and  taste  which  every  man  will  recog* 
aize  as  the  intense  peculiarities  of  Coleridge.  Could 
these  notions  really  have  belonged  to  Bowyer,  then 
how  do  we  know  but  he  wrote  the  Ancient  Mariner  1 
Vet,  on  consideration,  no  ;  for  even  Coleridge  admit 
ted  that,  spite  of  his  fine  theorizing  upon  composi 
acn,  Mr.  Bowyer  did  not  prosper  in  the  practice  —  of 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


499 


which  he  gave  us  this  illustration:  and,  as  it  ia  sup* 
posed  to  be  the  only  specimen  of  the  Bcwyeriana 
which  now  survives  in  this  sublunary  world,  we  are 
glad  to  extend  its  glory.  It  is  the  most  curious 
example  extant  of  the  melodious  in  sound  :  — 

’Twas  thou  that  smooth’d’st  the  rough-rugg’d  bed  of  pain.'* 

“  Smooth’d’st !  ”  Would  the  teeth  of  a  crocodile  not 
splinter  under  that  word  ?  It  seems  to  us  as  if  Mr, 
Bowyer’s  verses  ought  to  be  boiled  before  they  can  be 
read.  And  when  he  says,  ’ Twas  thou ,  what  is  the 
wretch  talking  to  ?  Can  he  be  apostrophizing  the 
knout  ?  We  very  much  fear  it.  If  so,  then,  you  see, 
(reader,)  that,  even  when  incapacitated  by  illness 
from  operating,  he  still  adores  the  image  of  his  holy 
scourge,  and  invokes  it  as  alone  able  to  smooth  w  his 
rough-rugg’d  bed.”  O  thou  infernal  Bowyer !  upon 
whom  even  Trollope  (History  of  Christ's  Hospital J 
charges  “  a  discipline  tinctured  with  more  than  due 
severity,”  can  there  be  any  partners  found  for  thee 
in  a  quadrille  except  Draco,  the  bloody  lawgiver 
Bishop  Bonner,  and  Mrs.  Brownrigg  ?54 

The  next  pet  was  Sir  Alexander  Ball.  Concerning 
Bowyer  Coleridge  did  not  talk  much,  but  chiefly 
wrote  ;  concerning  Bell  he  did  not  write  much,  but 
fhiefly  talked ;  concerning  Ball,  however,  he  both 
wrote  and  talked.  It  was  in  vain  to  muse  upon  any 
plan  for  having  Ball  blackballed  or  for  rebelling 
Egainst  Bell.  Think  of  a  man  who  had  fallen  into 
Due  pit  cabled  Bell ,  secondly,  falling  into  another  pin 


500 


COLERIDGE  AXD  OPIUM  EATING. 


called  Ball.  This  was  too  much.  We  were  obliged 
to  quote  poetry  against  them :  — 

(t  Letters  four  do  form  his  name. 

He  came  by  stealth  and  unlocked  my  den} 

And  the  nightmare  I  have  felt  since  then 
Of  thrice  three  hundred  thousand  men.” 

Not  that  we  insinuate  any  disrespect  to  Sir  Alexandei 
Ball.  He  was  about  the  foremost,  we  believe,  in  a!£ 
good  qualities,  amongst  Nelson’s  admirable  captains 
at  the  Nile.  He  commanded  a  seventy-four  most 
effectually  in  that  battle  ;  he  governed  Malta  as  well 
as  Sancho  governed  Barataria  ;  and  he  was  a  true 
practical  philosopher  —  as,  indeed,  was  Sancho.  But 
still,  by  all  that  we  could  ever  learn,  Sir  Alexander 
had  no  taste  for  the  abstract  upon  any  subject,  and 
would  have  read  as  mere  delirious  wanderings  those 
philosophic  opinions  which  Coleridge  fastened  like 
wings  upon  bin  respectable  but  astounded  shoulders. 

We  really  beg  pardon  for  having  laughed  a  little  at 
these  crazes  of  Coleridge  ;  but  laugh  we  did,  of  mere 
necessity,  in  those  days,  at  Bell  and  Ball,  whenever 
we  did  not  groan.  And,  as  the  same  precise  alterna¬ 
tive  offered  itself  now,  —  viz.,  that,  in  recalling  the 
case,  we  must  reverberate  either  the  groaning  or  the 
laughter,  —  we  presumed  the  reader  would  vote  for 
the  last.  Coleridge,  we  are  well  convinced,  cwed  il 
these  wandering  and  exaggerated  estimates  of  men  — 
these  diseased  impulses,  that,  like  the  mirage ,  showed 
akes  and  fountains  where  in  reality  there  were  onlj 
arid  deserts  —  to  the  derangements  worked  by  opium 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATINCj. 


501 


But  flow,  for  the  sake  of  change,  let  us  pass  tc  anothei 
topic.  Suppose  we  say  a  word  or  two  on  Coleridge’s 
accomplishments  as  a  scholar.  We  are  not  going  to 
enter  on  so  large  a  field  as  that  of  his  scholarship  in 
connection  with  his  philosophic  labors  —  scholarship  in 
the  result ;  not  this,  but  scholarship  in  the  means  and 
machinery,  range  of  verbal  scholarship,  is  what  we 
propose  for  a  moment’s  review.' 

For  instance,  what  sort  of  a  German  scholar  wai 
Coleridge  ?  We  dare  say  that,  because  in  his  version 
of  the  Wallenstein  there  are  some  inaccuracies,  those 
who  may  have  noticed  them  will  hold  him  cheap  in 
this  particular  pretension.  But,  to  a  certain  degree, 
they  will  be  wrong.  Coleridge  was  not  very  accurate 
in  any  thing  but  in  the  use  of  logic.  All  his  philologi¬ 
cal  attainments  were  imperfect.  He  did  not  talk 
German;  or  so  obscurely,  —  and,  if  he  attempted  to 
speak  fast,  so  erroneously, —  that  in  his  second  sen¬ 
tence,  when  conversing  with  a  German  lady  of  rank, 
he  contrived  to  assure  her  that  in  his  humble  opinion 

she  was  a  - Hard  it  is  to  fill  up  the  hiatus 

decorously ;  but,  in  fact,  the  word  very  coarsely  ex¬ 
pressed  that  she  was  no  better  than  she  should  be. 
Which  reminds  us  of  a  parallel  misadventure  to  a 
German,  whose  colloquial  English  had  been  equally 
neglected.  Having  obtained  an  interview  with  an 
English  lady,  he  opened  his  bus:ness  (whatever  b 
might  be)  thus  :  “  IEghborn  madam,  since  your 
tasband  have  kicked  do  bucket — ”  “Sir!”  in¬ 
terrupted  the  lady,  astonished  and  displeased.  “  O, 
pardon  !  —  mne,  ten  thousand  pardon  !  Now  I  make 
*ew  beginning  — quite  oder  beginning.  Madam,  sinca 


502 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


jroui  husband  have  cut  his  stick - ”  It  may  b* 

Bupp  >sed  that  this  did  not  mend  matters ;  and,  reading 
that  in  the  lady’s  countenance,  the  German  drew  out 
an  octavo  dictionary,  and  said,  perspiring  with  shame 
at  having  a  second  time  missed  fire,  “  Madam,  since 

your  husband  have  gone  to  kingdom  come - ”  This 

he  said  beseechingly  ;  but  the  lady  was  past  propitia¬ 
tion  by  this  time,  and  rapidly  moved  towards  the  door. 
Things  had  now  reached  a  crisis  ;  and,  if  something 
were  not  done  quickly,  the  game  was  up.  Now, 
therefore,  taking  a  last  hurried  look  at  his  dictionary, 
the  German  flew  after  the  lady,  crying  out,  in  a  voices 
of  despair,  “  Madam,  since  your  husband,  your  most 

respected  husband,  have  hopped  de  twig - ”55  This 

was  his  sheet  anchor ;  and,  as  this  also  came  home ,  of 
course  the  poor  man  was  totally  wrecked.  It  turned 
out  that  the  dictionary  he  had  used  —  (Arnold’s,  we 
think)  —  a  work  of  a  hundred  years  back,  and,  from 
mere  ignorance,  giving  slang  translations  from  Tom 
Brown,  L’Estrange,  and  other  jocular  writers  —  had 
put  down  the  verb  sterben  ( to  die )  with  the  following 
worshipful  series  of  equivalents :  1.  To  kick  the 
bucket;  2.  To  cut  one’s  stick;  3.  To  go  to  kingdom 
come  ;  4.  To  hop  the  twig. 

But,  though  Coleridge  did  not  pretend  to  any  fluent 
command  of  conversational  German,  he  read  it  with 
great  ease.  H:s  knowledge  of  German  literature  was, 
indeed,  too  much  limited  by  his  rare  opportunities  for 
commanding  any  thing  like  a  well-mounted  library. 
And  particularly  it  surprised  us  that  Coleridge  knew 
dttle  or  nothing  of  John  Paul  (Richter.)  But  hi* 
acquaintance  with  the  German  philosophic  master* 


COI  BRIDGE  AND  OPIUM  E/  TING, 


50? 


was  extensive ;  and  his  valuation  of  many  individual 
German  words  ot  phrases  was  delicate,  and  sometimes 
profound. 

As  a  Grecian,  Coleridge  must  be  estimated  with  a 
reference  to  the  state  and  standard  of  Greek  literature 
at  that  time  and  in  this  country.  Porson  had  not  vet 
raised  our  ideal.  The  earliest  laurels  of  Coleridge 
were  gathered,  however,  in  that  field.  Yet  no  man 
will,  at  this  day,  pretend  that  the  Greek  of  his  prize 
ode  is  sufferable.  Neither  did  Coleridge  ever  become 
an  accurate  Grecian  in  later  times,  when  better  mod¬ 
els  of  scholarship  and  better  aids  to  scholarship  had 
begun  to  multiply.  But  still  we  must  assert  this 
point  of  superiority  for  Coleridge,  that,  whilst  he 
never  was  what  may  be  called  a  well-mounted  scholar 
n  any  department  of  verbal  scholarship,  he  yet  dis¬ 
played  sometimes  a  brilliancy  of  conjectural  sagacity 
and  a  felicity  of  philosophic  investigation,  even  in  this 
path,  such  as  better  scholars  do  not  often  attain,  and 
of  a  kind  which  cannot  be  learned  from  books.  But, 
as  respects  his  accuracy,  again  we  must  recall  to  the 
reader  the  state  of  Greek  literature  in  England  during 
Coleridge’s  youth  ;  and  in  all  equity,  as  a  means  of 
placing  Coleridge  in  the  balances,  specifically  we 
must  recall  the  state  of  GreeK  metrical  composit  on 
at  that  period. 

To  measure  the  condition  of  Greek  literature  even 
in  Cambridge,  about  the  initial  period  of  Coleridge, 
we  need  only  look  back  to  the  several  translations  of 
Gray’s  Elegy  by  three  Cf  not  four)  of  the  reverend 
gentlemen  at  that  time  attached  to  Eton  College, 
Mathias,  no  very  great  scholar  himself  in  this  particu 


504 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


lar  field,  made  himself  merry,  in  his  Pursuit*  )f 
Literature ,  with  these  Eton  translations.  In  that  he 
was  right.  But  he  was  not  right  in  praising  a  con¬ 
temporary  translation  by  Cook,  who  (we  believe)  was 
the  immediate  predecessor  of  Porson  in  the  Greek 
chair.  As  a  specimen  of  this  translation,56  we  cite 
one  stanza ;  and  we  cannot  be  supposed  to  select 
unfairly,  because  it  is  the  stanza  which  Mathias  praises 
in  extravagant  terms.  “  Here,”  says  he,  “  Gray,  Cook, 
and  Nature  do  seem  to  contend  for  the  mastery.”  The 
English  quatrain  must  be  familiar  to  every  body :  — 

u  The  boast  of  heraldry,  the  pomp  of  power, 

And  all  that  beauty,  all  that  wealth,  e’er  gave, 

Await  alike  the  inevitable  hour : 

The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave.” 

And  the  following,  we  believe,  though  quoting  from 
a  thirty-three  years’  recollection  of  it,  is  the  exact 
Greek  version  of  Cook  :  — 


*A XaPls  euyevewv,  XaPls  ®  /SacrtA. TjtSos  apx&S, 

A woa  Ti>xys  xpu<re77s-,57  ’A^ooSiri??  Ka\ a  ra  Scopa, 
JlavPP  upa  TaVTa  Tt&vtjxt,  xai  ttdev  pogoifiov  apa{i* 
' Hq ojcjv  xZe’  <Uu)Ae,  xai  w/ero  £vrov  i (  ’Adi ;v. 


Now,  really,  these  verses,  by  force  of  a  little  mosaic 
te^ellation  from  genuine  Greek  sources,  pass  fluently 
over  the  tongue ;  but  can  they  be  considered  other 
than  a  cento  7  Swarms  of  English  schoolboys  at  this 
day  would  not  feel  very  proud  to  adopt  them.  In 
(act,  we  remember  (at  a  period  say  twelve  years  later 
Uan  this)  some  iambic  verses,  which  were  really  com 
posed  by  a  boy  —  viz.,  a  son  of  Dr.  Prettyman,  (after 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


£05 


wards  T^mline,)  Bishop  of  Winchester,  and.  in  earlier 
times,  private  tutor  to  Mr.  Pitt.  They  were  published 
ay  Middleton,  first  bishop  of  Calcutta,  in  me  preface 
to  his  work  on  the  Greek  article  ;  an&,  for  racy  idiom¬ 
atic  Greek,  self-originated,  and  not  a  mere  mocking 
bird’s  iteration  of  alien  notes,  are  so  much  superior  to 
ah  the  attempts  of  these  sexagenarian  doctors  as 
distinctly  to  mark  the  growth  of  a  new  era  and  a  new 
generation  in  this  difficult  accomplishment  within  the 
first  decenrmm  of  this  century.  It  is  singular  that 
only  on.,  blemish  is  suggested  by  any  of  the  con¬ 
temporary  critics  in  Dr.  Cook’s  verses  — -  viz.,  in  the 
word  %wov  for  which  this  critic  proposes  to  substitute 
< boivov,  to  prevent,  as  he  observes,  the  last  syllable  of 
&/£to  from  being  lengthened  by  the  £.  Such  con¬ 
siderations  as  these  are  necessary  to  the  truiince  casti- 
gatio  before  we  can  value  Coleridge’s  place  on  the 
scale  of  his  own  day  ;  which  day,  quoad  hoc ,  be  it 
remembered,  was  1790. 

As  to  French,  Coleridge  read  it  with  too  little  free¬ 
dom  to  find  pleasure  in  French  literature.  According- 
y  we  never  recollect  his  referring  for  any  purpose, 
either  of  argument  or  illustration,  to  a  French  classic. 
Latin,  from  his  regular  scholastic  training,  naturally  he 
lead  with  a  scholar’s  fluency  ;  and  indeed  he  read 
constantly  in  authors  such  as  Petrarch,  Erasmus, 
Calvin,  &c.,  whom  he  could  not  then  have  found  in 
translations.  But  Coleridge  had  not  cultivated  an  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  the  delicacies  of  classic  Latinity.  And 
u  is  remarkable  that  Wordsworth,  educated  most  negli 
ently  at  Hawksheai  school,  suosequently,  by  reading 
he  lyric  poetry  of  Horace,  s;moly  for  his  own  delight 


506 


COLERTDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


as  a  student  of  composition,  made  himself  a  master  of 
Latinity  in  its  most  difficult  form  ;  whilst  Coleridge 
Trained  regularly  in  a  great  southern  school,  neve, 
tarried  his  Latin  to  any  classical  polish. 

There  is  another  accomplishment  of  Coleridge’s 
less  broadly  open  to  the  judgment  of  this  generation 
and  not  at  all  of  the  next — viz.,  his  splendid  art  oi 
conversation,  on  which  it  will  be  interesting  to  say  a 
worL  Ten  years  ago,  when  the  music  of  this  rare 
performance  had  not  yet  ceased  to  vibrate  in  men’s 
ears,  what  a  sensation  was  gathering  amongst  the 
educated  classes  on  this  particular  subject !  What  a 
tumult  of  anxiety  prevailed  to  “  hear  Mr.  Coleridge,” 
or  even  to  talk  with  a  man  who  had  heard  him.  Had 
ae  lived  till  this  day,  not  Paganini  would  have  been  so 
much  sought  after.  That  sensation  is  now  decaying, 
because  a  new  generation  has  emerged  during  the  ten 
years  since  his  death.  But  many  still  remain  whose 
sympathy  (whether  of  curiosity  in  those  who  did  not 
know  him  or  of  admiration  in  those  who  did)  still 
reflects  as  in  a  mirror  the  great  stir  upon  this  subject 
which  then  was  moving  in  the  world.  To  these,  if 
'hey  should  inquire  for  the  great  distinguishing  principle 
i  f  Coleridge’s  conversation,  we  might  say  that  it  was 
the  power  of  vast  combination  “  in  linked  sweetness 
lor.g  drawn  out.”  He  gathered  into  focal  concentra¬ 
tion  the  largest  body  of  objects,  apparently  disconnected, 
that  any  man  ever  yet,  by  any  magic,  could  assemble, 
tr,  having  assembled,  could  manage.  His  great  fault 
was,  that,  by  not  opening  sufficient  spaces  for  reply,  or 
suggestion,  or  collateral  notice,  he  not  only  narrowed 
bia  own  field,  but  he  grievously  injured  the  final  irr» 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING.  507 

pression.  For  when  men’s  minds  are  purely  passive, 
when  they  are  not  allowed  to  react,  then  it  is  that  they 
collapse  most,  and  thaf  their  sense  of  what  is  said 
must  ever  be  feeblest.  Doubtless  there  must  have  been 
great  conversational  masters  elsewhere,  and  at  many 
periods  ;  but  in  this  lay  Coleridge’s  characteristic  ad¬ 
vantage,  that  he  was  a  great  natural  power,  and  also  a 
great  artist.  He  was  a  power  in  the  art ;  and  bo 
carried  a  new  art  into  the  power. 

But  now,  finally,  —  having  left  ourselves  little  room 
for  more,  —  one  or  two  wcHs  on  Coleridge  as  an 
opium  eater. 

We  have  not  often  read  a  sentence  falling  from  a 
wise  man  with  astonishment  so  profound  as  that  par¬ 
ticular  one  in  a  letter  of  Coleridge’s58  to  Mr.  Gillman 
which  speaks  of  the  effort  to  wean  one’s  self  from 
opium  as  a  trivial  task.  There  are,  we  believe,  several 
such  passages  ;  but  we  refer  to  that  one  in  particular 
which  assumes  that  a  single  “  week  ”  will  suffice  for 
the  whole  process  of  so  mighty  a  revolution.  Is,  indeed, 
5eviathan  so  tamed  ?  In  that  case,  the  quarantine  of 
.he  opium  eater  might  be  finished  within  Coleridge’s 
time  and  with  Coleridge’s  romantic  ease.  But  mark 
the  contradictions  of  this  extraordinary  man.  Not 
.ong  ago  we  were  domesticated  with  a  venerable  rustic, 
strongheaded,  but  incurably  obstinate  in  his  prejudices, 
who  treated  the  whcl^  body  of  medical  men  as  ignorant 
pretenders,  knowing  absolutely  nothing  of  the  system 
Vhich  they  professed  to  superintend.  This,  you  will 
•emark,  is  no  very  singular  case.  No;  nor,  as  we 
Relieve,  is  the  antagonist  case  of  ascribing  to  such 
nan  magical  powers.  Nor,  what  D  worse  still,  the 


m 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING- 


eoexistence  of  both  cases  in  the  same  mind,  as  in  fact 
happened  here  ;  for  this  same  obstinate  friend  of  ours 
who  treated  all  medical  pretensions  as  the  mere  jest  of 
the  universe,  every  third  day  was  exacting  from  his 
own  medical  attendants  some  exquisite  tour  deforce , 
as  that  they  should  know  or  should  do  something, 
which,  if  they  had  known  or  done,  all  men  would  have 
suspected  them  reasonably  of  magic.  He  rated  the 
whole  medical  body  as  infants ;  and  yet  what  he  ex¬ 
acted  from  them  every  third  day,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
virtually  presumed  them  to  be  the  only  giants  within 
the  whole  range  of  science.  Parallel  and  equal  is  the 
contradiction  of  Coleridge.  He  speaks  of  opium  ex¬ 
cess  —  his  own  excess  we  mean  —  the  excess  of  twenty- 
five  years  —  as  a  thing  to  be  laid  aside  easily  and  for¬ 
ever  within  seven  days  ;  and  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
ae  describes  it  pathetically,  sometimes  with  a  frantic 
pathos,  as  the  scourge,  the  curse,  the  one  almighty 
blight  which  had  desolated  his  life. 

This  shocking  contradiction  we  need  not  press. 
All  readers  will  see  that.  But  some  will  ask,  Was 
Mr.  Coleridge  right  in  either  view  ?  Being  so  atro¬ 
ciously  wrong  in  the  first  notion,  (viz.,  that  the  opium 
of  twenty-five  years  was  a  thing  easily  to  be  for¬ 
sworn,)  where  a  child  could  know  that  he  was  wrong, 
was  he  even  altogether  right,  secondly,  in  believing 
»hat  his  own  life,  root  and  branch,  had  been  withered 
by  opium  ?  For  it  will  not  follow,  because,  with  a 
relation  to  happiness  and  tranquillity,  a  man  may  have 
found  opium  his  curse,  that  therefore,  as  a  creature  of 
energies  and  great  purposes,  he  must  have  been  the 
»reck  which  he  seems  to  suppose.  Opium  gives  an* 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING 


509 


Kikes  away.  It  defeats  the  steady  habit  of  exertion 
but  it  creates  spasms  of  irregular  exertion.  It  ruins  the 
natural  power  of  life  ;  but  it  develops  preternatural 
paroxysms  of  intermitting  power. 

Let  us  ask  of  any  man  who  holds  that  not  Cob 
©ridge  himself,  but  the  world,  as  interested  in  Col* 
Bridge’s  usefulness,  has  suffered  by  his  addiction  to 
opium,  whether  he  is  aware  of  the  way  in  which 
opium  affected  Coleridge  ;  and,  secondly,  whether  he 
is  aware  of  the  actual  contributions  to  literature  — 
how  large  they  were  —  which  Coleridge  made  in 
spite  of  opium.  All  who  were  intimate  with  Col¬ 
eridge  must  remember  the  fits  of  genial  animation 
which  were  created  continually  in  his  manner  and  in 
his  buoyancy  of  thought  by  a  recent  or  by  an  extra 
dose  of  the  omnipotent  drug.  A  lady,  who  knew 
nothing  experimentally  of  opium,  once  told  us  that 
she  “  could  tell  when  Mr.  Coleridge  had  taken  too 
much  opium  by  his  shining  countenance.”  She  was 
right :  we  know  that  mark  of  opium  excesses  well 
and  the  cause  of  it ;  or  at  least  we  believe  the  cause 
to  lie  in  the  quickening  of  the  insensible  perspiration 
which  accumulates  and  glistens  on  the  face.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  a  criterion  it  was  that  could  not  deceive  us 
as  to  the  condition  of  Coleridge.  And  uniformly  in 
hat  condition  he  made  his  most  effective  intellectual 
displays.  It  is  true  that  he  might  not  be  happy  under 
this  fiery  animation  ;  and  we  fully  believe  that  he  was 
Hot.  Nobody  is  happy  under  laudanum  except  for  a 
rery  short  term  of  years.  But  in  what  way  did  that 
operate  upon  his  exertions  as  a  writer  ?  We  are  of 
opinion  that  it  killed  Coleridge  as  a  poet.  “  The  harp 


510 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


gf  Quantock  ”  was  silenced  forever  by  the  torment  of 
Bpium  ;  but  proportionably  it  roused  and  stung  by 
misery  bis  metaphysical  instincts  into  more  spasmodic 
life.  Poetry  can  flourish  only  in  the  atmosphere  of 
happiness.  But  subtle  and  perplexed  investigatic  os 
of  difficult  problems  are  amongst  the  commonest  re¬ 
sources  for  beguiling  the  sense  of  misery.  And  for 
this  we  have  the  direct  authority  of  Coleridge  himself 
speculating  on  his  own  case.  In  the  beautiful  though 
unequal  ode  entitled  Dejection ,  stanza  six,  occurs  the 
following  passage :  — 


For  not  to  think  of  what  I  needs  must  feel, 
But  to  be  still  and  patient  all  I  can, 

And  haply  by  abstruse  research  to  steal 
From  my  own  nature  all  the  natural  man ,  — 
This  was  my  sole  resource,  my  only  plan  ; 

Till  that  which  suits  a  part  infects  the  whole, 
And  now  is  almost  grown  the  habit  of  my  soul.” 


Considering  the  exquisite  quality  of  some  poems 
which  Coleridge  has  composed,  nobody  can  grieve 
(or  has  grieved)  more  than  ourselves  at  seeing  so 
beautiful  a  fountain  choked  up  with  weeds.  But,  had 
Coleridge  been  a  happier  man,  it  is  our  fixed  belief 
that  we  should  have  had  far  less  of  his  philosophy, 
and  perhaps,  but  not  certainly,  might  have  had  more 
of  his  general  literature.  In  the  estimate  of  the 
oublic,  doubtless,  that  will  seem  a  had  exchange 
fivery  man  to  his  taste.  Meantime,  what  we  wish  to 
ihow  is,  that  the  loss  was  not  absolute,  but  merely 
relative. 

it  is  urged,  however,  that,  even  on  his  philosophic 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


511 


speculations,  opium  operated  unfavorably  in  one  re¬ 
spect,  by  often  causing  him  to  leave  them  unfinished. 
This  is  true.  Whenever  Coleridge  (being  highly 
charged,  or  saturated,  with  opium)  had  written  with 
distempered  vigor  upon  any  question,  there  occurred 
soon  after  a  recoil  of  intense  disgust,  not  from  his 
own  paper  only,  but  even  from  the  subject.  All 
opium  eaters  are  tainted  with  the  infirmity  of  leaving 
works  unfinished  and  suffering  reactions  of  disgust ; 
but  Coleridge  taxed  himself  with  that  infirmity  in 
verse  before  he  could  at  all  have  commenced  opium 
eating.  Besides,  it  is  too  much  assumed  by  Coleridge 
and  by  his  biographer  that  to  leave  off  opium  was 
of  course  to  regain  juvenile  health.  But  all  opium 
eaters  make  the  mistake  of  supposing  every  pain  or 
irritation  which  they  suffer  to  be  the  product  of  opium  ; 
whereas  a  wise  man  will  say,  Suppose  you  do  leave 
off  opium,  that  will  not  deliver  you  from  the  load  of 
years  (say  sixty-three)  which  you  carry  on  your  back 
Charles  Lamb,  another  man  of  true  genius,  and  an 
other  head  belonging  to  the  Blackwood  Gallery,  made 
that  mistake  in  his  Confessions  of  a  Drunkard.  “  I 
looked  back,”  says  he,  “  to  the  time  when  always,  on 
waking  in  the  morning,  I  had  a  song  rising  to  my  lips.” 
At  present,  it  seems,  being  a  drunkard,  he  has  no  such 
song.  Ay,  dear  Lamb,  but  note  this,  that  the  drunk¬ 
ard  was  fifty-six  years  old,  the  songster  was  twenty- 
three.  Take  twenty-three  from  fifty-six,  and  we  have 
some  reason  to  believe  tnat  thirty-three  will  remain 
which  period  of  thirty-three  years  is  a  pretty  good 
reason  for  not  singing  in  the  morning,  even  if  brandy 
has  been  out  of  the  question. 


512 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


It  is  singular,  as  respects  Coleridge,  that  Mr.  Grill- 
man  never  says  one  word  upon  the  event  of  the  grea 
Highgate  experiment  for  leaving  off  laudanum,  though 
Coleridge  came  to  Mr.  Gillman’s  for  no  other  purpose  • 
and  in  a  week,  this  vast  creation  of  new  earth,  sea,  aisa 
all  that  in  them  is,  was  to  have  been  accomplished. 
We  rayiher  think,  as  Bayley  junior  observes,  that  thr 
explosion  must  have  hung  fire.  But  that  is  a  trifle 
We  have  another  pleasing  hypothesis  on  the  subject 
Mr.  Wordsworth,  in  his  exquisite  lines  written  cn  3 
flyleaf  of  his  own  Castle  of  Indolence ,  having  de¬ 
scribed  Coleridge  as  “  a  noticeable  man  with  large 
gray  eyes,”  goes  on  to  say,  “  He  ”  (viz.,  Coleridge) 
u  did  that  other  man  entice  ”  to  view  his  imagery. 
Now,  we  are  sadly  afraid  that  “  the  noticeable  man 
with  large  gray  eyes”  did  entice  “  that  other  man,” 
viz.,  Gillman,  to  commence  opium  eating.  This  is 
droll ;  and  it  makes  us  laugh  horribly.  Gillman 
should  have  reformed  him ;  and  lo,  he  corrupts  Gill- 
man  !  S.  T.  Coleridge  visited  Highgate  by  way  of 
being  converted  from  the  heresy  of  opium ;  and  the 
issue  is,  that  in  two  months’  time  various  grave 
men,  amongst  whom  our  friend  Gillman  marches  first 
in  great  pomp,  are  found  to  have  faces  shining  and 
glorious  as  that  of  Aesculapius  —  a  fact  of  which  we 
have  already  explained  the  secret  meaning.  And 
scandal  says  (but  then,  what  will  not  scandal  say?) 
that  a  hogshead  of  opium  goes  up  daily  through 
Highg^e  tunnel.  Surely  one  corroboration  of  our 
^ypotnesis  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  vol.  i.  o. 
Giiiman’s  Coleridge  is  forever  to  stand  unpropped  by 
Toi.  ii. ;  for  we  have  already  observed  that  opium 


COLERIDGE  AND  OIItTM  EATING.  513 

faters,  though  good  fellows  upon  the  whole  never 
finish  any  thing. 

What  then?  A  man  has  a  right  never  to  finish 
any  thing.  Certainly  he  has,  and  by  Magna  Charta ; 
hut  he  has  no  right,  by  Magna  Charta  or  by  Parva 
Charta,  to  slander  decent  men  like  ourselves  and  our 
friend  the  author  of  the  Opium  Confessions .  Here 
it  is  that  our  complaint  arises  against  Mr.  Gillman. 
If  he  has  taken  to  opium  eating,  can  we  help  that  ? 
If  his  face  shines,  must  our  faces  be  blackened  ? 
He  has  very  improperly  published  some  intemperate 
passages59  from  Coleridge, s  letters  which  ought  to  have 
been  considered  confidential,  unless  Coleridge  had  left 
them  for  publication,  charging  upon  the  author  of  the 
Opium  Confessions  a  reckless  disregard  of  the  temp¬ 
tations  which  in  that  work  he  was  scattering  abroad 
amongst  men.  Now,  this  author  is  connected  with 
ourselves ;  and  we  cannot  neglect  his  defence,  unless 
in  the  case  that  he  undertakes  it  himself. 

We  complain  also  that  Coleridge  raises  (and  is 
backed  by  Mr.  Gillman  in  raising)  a  distinction,  per¬ 
fectly  perplexing  to  us,  between  himself  and  the  au¬ 
thor  of  the  Opium  Confessions  upon  the  question, 
why  they  severally  began  the  practice  of  opium  eat- 
ng.  In  himself,  it  seems,  this  motive  was  to  relieve 
pain  ;  whereas  the  confessor  was  surreptitiously  seek¬ 
ing  for  pleasure.  Ay,  indeed,  where  did  he  learn 
that  7  We  have  no  copy  of  the  Confessions  here, 
bo  we  cannot  quote  chapter  and  verse ;  but  we  dis¬ 
tinctly  remember  that  toothache  is  recorded  in  that 
took  as  the  particular  occasion  which  first  introduced 


33 


514  COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 

the  author  to  the  knowledge  of  opium.  Whether 
afterwards,  having  been  thus  initiated  by  the  demon 
of  pain,  the  opium  confessor  did  not  apply  powers 
thus  discovered  to  purposes  of  mere  pleasure,  is  a 
question  for  himself ;  and  the  same  question  applies 
with  the  same  cogency  to  Coleridge.  Coleridge  began 
in  rheumatic  pains.  What  then  ?  This  is  no  proof 
that  he  did  not  end  in  voluptuousness.  For  our  part, 
we  are  slow  to  believe  that  ever  any  man  did  or 
could  learn  the  somewhat  awful  truth  that  in  a  cer¬ 
tain  ruby-colored  elixir  there  lurked  a  divine  power 
to  chase  away  the  genius  of  er.nui  without  subse¬ 
quently  abusing  this  power.  To  taste  but  once  from 
the  tree  of  knowledge  is  fatal  to  the  subsequent 
power  of  abstinence.  True  it  is,  that  generations 
have  used  laudanum  as  an  anodyne,  (for  instance, 
hospital  patients,)  who  have  not  afterwards  courted  its 
powers  as  a  voluptuous  stimulant ;  but  that,  be  sure, 
has  arisen  from  no  abstinence  in  them .  There  are, 
in  fact,  two  classes  of  temperaments  as  to  this  terrific 
drug — those  which  are  and  those  which  are  not 
preconformed  to  its  power ;  those  which  genially 
expand  to  its  temptations,  and  those  which  frostily 
exclude  them.  Not  in  the  energies  of  the  will,  but 
in  the  qualities  of  the  nervous  organization,  lies  the 
dread  arbitration  of  —  Fall,  or  stand :  doomed  thou 
art  to  yield,  or,  strengthened  constitutionally,  to  re¬ 
sist.  Most  of  those  who  have  but  a  low  sense  of 
he  spells  lying  couchant  in  opium  have  practically 
ttone  at  all ;  for  the  initial  fascination  is  for  them 
sffectually  defeated  by  the  sickness  which  Nature  ha* 


COLERIDGE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


515 


associate i  with  the  first  stages  of  opium  eating.  But 
to  that  other  class,  whose  nervous  sensibilities  vibrate 
to  their  profoundest  depths  under  the  first  touch  of  the 
angelic  poison,  even  as  a  lover’s  ear  thrills  on  hearing 
unexpectedly  the  voice  of  her  whom  he  loves,  opium 
is  the  Amreeta  cup  of  beatitude.  You  know  the 
Paradise  Lost  ?  and  you  remember  from  the  elev¬ 
enth  book,  in  its  earlier  part,  that  laudanum  already 
existed  in  Eden — nay,  that  it  was  used  medicinally 
by  an  archangel ;  for,  after  Michael  had  “  purged  with 
euphrasy  and  rue  ”  the  eyes  of  Adam,  lest  he  should 
be  unequal  to  the  mere  sight  of  the  great  visions 
about  to  unfold  their  draperies  before  him,  next  he 
fortifies  his  fleshly  spirits  against  the  affliction  of 
these  visions,  of  which  visions  the  first  was  death. 
And  how  ? 

“  He  from  the  well  of  life  three  drops  instilled." 

What  was  their  operation  ? 

“  So  deep  the  power  of  these  ingredients  pierced, 

Even  to  the  inmost  seat  of  mental  eighty 
That  Adam,  now  enforced  to  close  his  eyes, 

Sank  down,  and  all  his  spirits  became  entranced. 

But  him  the  gentle  angel  by  the  hand 
Soon  raised - ” 

The  second  of  these  lines  it  is  which  betrays  the 
presence  of  laudanum.  It  is  in  the  faculty  of  mental 
nsion,  it  is  in  the  increased  power  of  dealing  with 
Ihe  shadowy  and  the  dark,  that  the  characteristic 
«>'rtue  of  opium  lies.  Now,  in  the  original  higne/ 


516 


COLERIDCE  AND  OPIUM  EATING. 


sensibility  is  found  some  palliation  for  the  practice  of 
opium  eating ;  in  the  greater  temptation  is  a  greater 
excuse.  And  in  this  faculty  of  self- revelation  is 
found  some  palliation  for  reporting  the  case  to  the 
world,  which  both  Coleridge  and  his  biographer  have 
overlooked. 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 

SECTION  THE  FIRST.  — THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 

Some  twenty  or  more  years  before  I  matriculated  at 
Oxford,  Mr.  Palmer,  at  that  time  M.  P.  for  Bath,  had 
accomplished  two  things,  very  hard  to  do  on  our  little 
planet,  the  Earth,  however  cheap  they  may  be  held  by 
eccentric  people  in  comets  —  he  had  invented  mail- 
coaches,  and  he  had  married  the  daughter60  of  a  duke. 
He  was,  therefore,  just  twice  as  great  a  man  as  Galileo, 
who  did  certainly  invent  (or  which  is  the  same  thing,61 
discover)  the  satellites  of  Jupiter,  those  very  next 
things  extant  to  mail-coaches  in  the  two  capital  pre¬ 
tensions  of  speed  and  keeping  time,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  did  not  marry  the  daughter  of  a  duke. 

These  mail-coaches,  as  organzied  by  Mr.  Palmer, 
are  entitled  to  a  circumstantial  notice  from  myself, 
naving  had  so  large  a  share  in  developing  the  anarchies 
of  my  subsequent  dreams ;  an  agency  which  they 
accomplished,  1st,  through  velocity,  at  that  time  un¬ 
precedented —  for  they  first  revealed  the  glory  of  mo¬ 
tion  ;  2dly,  through  grand  effects  for  the  eye  between 
lamp-light  and  the  darkness  upon  solitary  roads ; 
3dly,  through  animal  beauty  and  power  so  often  dis¬ 
played  in  the  class  of  horses  selected  for  this  mail 
service  ;  4thly,  through  the  conscious  presence  of  a 
central  intellect,  that,  in  the  midst  of  vast  distances ei 
—  of  storms,  of  darkness,  of  danger  —  overruled  al 

[5171 


518 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


obstacles  into  one  steady  co-operation  to  a  national 
result.  For  my  own  feeling,  this  post-office  service 
spoke  as  by  some  mighty  orchestra,  where  a  thousand 
instruments,  all  disregarding  each  other,  and  so  far  in 
danger  of  discord,  yet  all  obedient  as  slaves  to  the 
supreme  baton  of  some  great  leader,  terminate  in  a 
perfection  of  harmony  like  that  of  heart,  brain,  and 
lungs,  in  a  healthy  animal  organization.  But,  finally, 
that  particular  element  in  this  whole  combinatiox 
which  most  impressed  myself,  and  through  which  it  is 
that  to  this  hour  Mr.  Palmer’s  mail-coach  system  ty¬ 
rannizes  over  my  dreams  by  terror  and  terrific  beauty, 
lay  in  the  awful  political  mission  which  at  that  time  it 
fulfilled.  The  mail-coach  it  was  that  distributed  over 
the  face  of  the  land,  like  the  opening  of  apocalyptic 
vials,  the  heart-shaking  news  of  Trafalgar,  of  Sala¬ 
manca,  of  Vittoria,  of  Waterloo.  These  were  the 
harvests  that,  in  the  grandeur  of  their  reaping,  re¬ 
deemed  the  tears  and  blood  in  which  they  had  been 
gown.  Neither  was  the  meanest  peasant  so  much 
below  the  grandeur  and  the  sorrow  of  the  times  as  to 
confound  battles  such  as  these,  which  were  gradually 
moulding  the  destinies  of  Christendom,  with  the  vul¬ 
gar  conflicts  of  ordinary  warfare,  so  often  no  more 
than  gladiatorial  trials  of  national  prowess.  The 
victories  of  England  in  this  stupendous  contest  rose 
of  themselves  as  natural  Te  Deums  to  heaven ;  and  it 
was  felt  by  the  thoughtful  that  such  victories,  at  such 
ft.  crisis  of  general  prostration,  were  not  more  benefit 
rial  to  ourselves  than  finally  to  France,  oui  enemy 
and  tc  the  nations  of  all  western  or  central  Europe, 
trough  whose  pusillanimity  it  was  that  the  French 
iomination  had  prospered. 


THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 


51S 


The  mail-coach,  as  the  national  organ  for  publishing 
diese  mighty  events  thus  diffusively  influential,  became 
itself  a  spiritualized  and  glorified  object  to  an  impas¬ 
sioned  heart ;  and  naturally,  in  the  Oxford  of  that 
day,  all  hearts  were  impassioned,  as  being  all  (or 
nearly  all)  in  early  manhood.  In  most  universities 
there  is  one  single  college ;  in  Oxford  there  were  five* 
and-twenty,  all  of  which  were  peopled  by  young  men, 
the  elite  of  their  own  generation ;  not  boys,  but  men ; 
none  under  eighteen.  In  some  of  these  many  col» 
leges,  the  custom  permitted  the  student  to  keep  what 
are  called u  short  terms;’  that  is,  the  four  terms  of 
Michaelmas,  Lent,  Easter,  and  Act,  were  kept  by  a 
residence,  in  the  aggregate  of  ninety-one  days,  or 
thirteen  weeks.  Under  this  interrupted  residence,  it 
was  possible  that  a  student  might  have  a  reason  for 
going  down  to  his  home  four  times  in  the  year.  This 
made  eight  journeys  to  and  fro.  But,  as  the  homes 
lay  dispersed  through  all  the  shires  of  the  island,  and 
most  of  us  disdained  all  coaches  except  his  majesty’s 
mail,  no  city  out  of  London  could  pretend  to  so  ex¬ 
tensive  a  connection  with  Mr.  Palmer’s  establishment 
as  Oxford.  Three  mails,  at  the  least,  I  remember  as 
passing  every  day  through  Oxford,  and  benefiting  by 
my  personal  patronage  —  viz.,  the  Worcester,  the  Glou¬ 
cester,  and  the  Holyhead  mail.  Naturally,  therefore 
it  became  a  point  of  some  interest  with  us,  whose  jour¬ 
neys  revolved  every  six  weeks  on  an  average,  to  look 
&  little  into  the  executive  details  of  the  system.  With 
icrne  of  these  Mr.  Palmer  had  no  concern  ;  <hey  rested 
lpon  bye-laws  enacted  by  nosting-houses  for  their  gwb 
oenefit,  and  upon  other  bye-laws,  equally  stern,  enacted 
%y  the  inside  passengers  for  the  illustration  of  their  ows 


520 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


fiau ghty  exclusiveness.  These  last  were  of  a  nature  tc 
rouse  our  scorn,  from  which  the  transition  was  nci 
very  long  to  systematic  mutiny.  Up  to  his  time,  say 
1804,  or  1805  (the  year  of  Trafalgar),  it  nad  been  the 
fixed  assumption  of  the  four  inside  people  (as  an  old 
tradition  of  all  public  carriages  derived  from  the  reigB 
of  Charles  II.),  that  they,  the  illustrious  quaternion, 
constituted  a  porcelain  variety  of  the  human  race, 
whose  dignity  would  have  been  compromised  by  ex¬ 
changing  one  word  of  civility  with  the  three  miserable 
delf-ware  outsides.  Even  to  have  kicked  an  outsider, 
might  have  been  held  to  attaint  the  foot  concerned  in 
that  operation  ;  so  that,  perhaps,  it  would  have  re¬ 
quired  an  act  of  parliament  to  restore  its  purity  of 
blood.  What  words,  then,  could  express  the  horror, 
and  the  sense  of  treason,  in  that  case,  which  had  hap¬ 
pened,  where  all  three  outsides  (the  trinity  of  Pariahs) 
made  a  vain  attempt  to  sit  down  at  the  same  breakfast- 
table  or  dinner-table  with  the  consecrated  four  ?  I 
myself  witnessed  such  an  attempt ;  and  on  that  occa¬ 
sion  a  benevolent  old  gentleman  endeavored  to  soothe 
his  three  holy  associates,  by  suggestiag  that,  if  the 
outsides  were  indicted  for  this  criminal  attempt  at  the 
next  assizes,  the  court  would  regard  it  as  a  case  of 
lunacy,  or  delirium  tremens ,  rather  than  of  treason. 
England  owes  much  of  her  grandeur  to  the  depth  of 
Ihe  aristocratic  element  in  her  social  composition,  when 
Dulling  against  her  strong  democracy.  I  am  not  the 
<n&n  to  laugh  at  it.  But  sometimes,  undoubtedly,  it 
expressed  itself  in  comic  shapes.  The  course  taken 
with  the  infatuated  outsiders,  in  the  particular  attempt 
arhich  I  have  noticed,  was,  that  the  waiter,  beckoning 
{Lem  away  from  the  privileged  salle-d-manger,  sang 


THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 


521 


Dut,  ‘  Tins  way,  my  good  men,’  and  then  enticed  these 
good  men  away  to  the  kitchen.  But  that  plan  had 
not  always  answered.  Sometimes,  though  rarely, 
&ases  occurred  where  the  intruders,  being  stronger 
than  usual,  or  more  vicious  than  usual,  resolutely 
refused  to  budge,  and  so  far  carried  their  point,  ar  to 
have  a  separate  table  arranged  for  themselves  ‘n  P, 
corner  of  the  general  room.  Yet,  if  an  Indian  scree's 
could  be  found  ample  enough  to  plant  them  out  from 
the  very  eyes  of  the  high  table,  or  dais,  it  then  be¬ 
came  possible  to  assume  as  a  fiction  of  law  —  that  the 
three  delf  fellows,  after  all,  were  not  present.  They 
could  be  ignored  by  the  porcelain  men,  under  the 
maxim,  that  objects  not  appearing,  and  not  existing, 
are  governed  by  the  same  logical  construction.63 

Such  being,  at  that  time,  the  usages  of  mail-coachf's, 
what  was  to  be  done  by  us  of  young  Oxford  ?  We, 
the  most  aristocratic  of  people,  who  were  addicted  to 
the  practice  of  looking  down  superciliously  even  upon 
the  insides  themselves  as  often  very  questionable 
characters  —  were  we,  by  voluntarily  going  outside,  to 
court  indignities  ?  If  our  dress  and  bearing  sheltered 
us,  generally,  from  the  suspicion  of  being  4  raff’  (the 
name  at  that  period  for“  snobs”64),  we  really  were  such 
constructively,  by  the  place  we  assumed.  If  we  did 
not  submit  to  the  deep  shadow  of  eclipse,  we  entered 
Rt  least  the  skirts  of  its  penumbra.  And  the  analogy 
of  theatres  was  valid  against  us,  where  no  man  can 
tomplain  of  tbe  annoyances  incident  to  the  pit  or  gal- 
ery,  having  his  instant  remedy  in  paying  the  highe? 
price  of  the  boxes.  But  the  soundness  of  this  analogy 
we  disputed.  In  the  case  of  the  theatre,  it  cannot  be 
pretended  that  the  inferior  situations  have  any  separata 


522 


IHE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


attractions,  unless  the  pit  may  be  supposed  to  have  as 
advantage  for  the  purposes  of  the  critic  or  the  dramatic 
reporter.  But  the  critic  or  reporter  is  a  rarity.  For 
most  people,  the  sole  benefit  is  in  the  price.  Now,  on 
the  contrary,  the  outside  of  the  mail  had  its  own  in¬ 
communicable  advantages.  These  we  could  not  fore¬ 
go.  The  higher  price  we  would  willingly  have  paid, 
but  not  the  price  connected  with  the  condition  of  riding 
inside  ;  which  condition  we  pronounced  insufferable. 
The  air,  the  freedom  of  prospect,  the  proximity  to  the 
horses,  the  elevation  of  seat  —  these  were  what  we 
required  ;  but,  above  all,  the  certain  anticipation  cf 
purchasing  occasional  opportunities  of  driving. 

Such  was  the  difficulty  which  pressed  us  ;  and  undei 
the  coercion  of  this  difficulty,  we  instituted  a  searching 
inquiry  into  the  true  quality  and  valuation  of  the  dif¬ 
ferent  apartments  about  the  mail.  We  conducted 
this  inquiry  on  metaphysical  principles ;  and  it  waa 
ascertained  satisfactorily,  that  the  roof  of  the  coach, 
which  by  some  weak  men  had  been  called  the  attics; 
and  by  some  the  garrets,  was  in  reality  the  drawing¬ 
room  ;  in  which  drawing-room  the  box  was  the  chief 
ottoman  or  sofa  ;  whilst  it  appeared  that  the  inside , 
which  had  been  traditionally  regarded  as  the  only  room 
tenantable  by  gentlemen,  was,  in  fact,  the  coal-cellar 
in  disguise. 

Great  wits  jump.  The  very  same  idea  had  not  long 
before  struck  the  celestial  intellect  of  China.  Amongsi 
the  presents  carried  out  by  our  first  embassy  to  that 
country  was  a  state-coach.  It  had  been  special]® 
selected  as  a  personal  gift  by  George  III. ;  but  the  ex 
act  mode  of  using  it  was  an  immense  mystery  to  Pekin. 
The  ambassador,  indeed  (Lord  Macartney),  had  made 


THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 


523 


some  impel  feet  explanations  upon  this  point ;  bu.,  gui 
his  excellency  communicated  these  in  a  diplomatic 
whisper,  at  the  very  moment  of  his  departure,  the 
celestial  intellect  was  very  feebly  illuminated,  and  it 
became  necessary  to  call  a  cabinet  council  on  the  grand 
state  question,  u  Where  was  the  emperor  to  sit?”  Th® 
hammer-cloth  happened  to  be  unusually  gorgeous ; 
and  partly  on  that  consideration,  but  partly  also  be¬ 
cause  the  box  offered  the  most  elevated  seat,  was 
nearest  to  the  moon,  and  undeniably  went  foremost,  it 
was  resolved  by  acclamation  that  the  box  was  the  im¬ 
perial  throne,  and  for  the  scoundrel  who  drove,  he 
might  sit  where  he  could  find  a  perch.  The  horses, 
therefore,  being  harnessed,  solemnly  his  imperial 
majesty  ascended  his  new  English  throne  under  a 
flourish  of  trumpets,  having  the  first  lord  of  the  treas¬ 
ury  on  his  right  hand,  and  the  chief  jester  on  his  left. 
Peldn  gloried  in  the  spectacle ;  and  in  the  whole 
flowery  people,  constructively  present  by  representa¬ 
tion,  there  was  but  one  discontented  person,  and  that 
was  the  coachman.  This  mutinous  individual  auda¬ 
ciously  shouted,  “  Where  am  I  to  sit  ?  ”  But  the  privy 
council,  incensed  by  his  disloyalty,  unanimously 
opened  the  door,  and  kicked  him  into  the  inside.  He 
had  all  the  inside  places  to  himself ;  but  such  is  the 
rapacity  of  ambition,  that  he  was  still  dissatisfied.  £‘  ] 
gay,”  he  cried  out  in  an  extempore  petition,  addressed 
to  the  emperor  through  the  window — “I  say,  how 
am  1  to  catch  hold  of  the  reins?”  —  u  Anyhow,”  was  the 
imperial  answer  ;  u  don’t  trouble  me ,  man,  in  my  glory 
How  catch  the  reins  ?  Why,  through  the  windows, 
throign  the  keyholes  —  anyhow.”  Finally  this  cun* 
minacious  coachman  lengthened  the  check-strings  into 


524 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


it  sort  of  jury-reins,  communicating  with  the  horses  * 
with  these  he  drove  as  steadily  as  Pekin  had  any  right 
to  expect.  The  emperor  returned  after  the  briefest  :( 
circuits  ;  he  descended  in  great  pomp  from  his  throne, 
with  the  severest  resolution  never  to  remount  it.  A 
public  thanksgiving  was  ordered  for  his  majesty's 
happy  escape  from  the  disease  of  broken  neck  ;  anti 
the  state-coach  was  dedicated  thenceforward  as  a 
votive  offering  to  the  god  Fo,  Fo  —  whom  the  learned 
more  accurately  called  Fi,  Fi. 

A  revolution  of  this  same  Chinese  character  did 
young  Oxford  of  that  era  effect  in  the  constitution  of 
mail-coach  society.  It  was  a  perfect  French  revolu¬ 
tion  ;  and  we  had  good  reason  to  say,  pa  ira.  In  fact, 
it  soon  became  too  popular.  The  ‘  public,’  a  well- 
known  character,  particularly  disagreeable,  though 
slightly  respectable,  and  notorious  for  affecting  the 
chief  seats  in  synagogues  —  had  at  first  loudly  op¬ 
posed  this  revolution ;  but  when  the  opposition  showed 
itself  to  be  ineffectual,  our  disagreeable  friend  went 
into  it  with  headlong  zeal.  At  first  it  was  a  sort  of 
race  between  us  ;  and,  as  the  public  is  usually  from 
thirty  to  fifty  years  old,  naturally  we  of  young  Oxford, 
that  averaged  about  twenty,  had  the  advantage.  Then 
the  public  took  to  bribing,  giving  fees  to  horse-keep¬ 
ers,  &c.,  who  hired  out  their  persons  as  warming-pans 
on  the  box-seat.  That ,  you  know,  was  shocking  to 
all  moral  sensibilities.  Come  to  bribery,  said  we,  and 
there  is  an  end  to  all  morality,  Aristotle’s,  Zeno’s, 
Cicero’s,  or  anybody’s.  And,  besides,  of  what  use 
was  it  ?  For  we  bribed  also.  And  as  our  bribes  to 
hose  of  the  public  were  as  five  shillings  to  sixpence, 
fcere  again  young  Oxford  had  the  advantage.  But  the 


THE  GLOBY  OF  MOTION. 


525 


tontest  was  ruinous  to  tlie  principles  of  the  stabieg 
eonnected  with  the  mails.  This  whole  corporation 
was  constantly  bribed,  rebribed,  and  often  sur-rebribed ; 
&  mail-coach  yard  was  like  the  hustings  in  a  contested 
election  ;  and  a  horse-keeper,  hostler,  or  helper,  waa 
held  by  the  philosophical  at  that  time  to  be  the  most 
corrupt  character  in  the  nation. 

There  was  an  impression  upon  the  public  mind, 
natural  enough  from  the  continually  augmenting  ve¬ 
locity  of  the  mail,  but  quite  erroneous,  that  an  outside 
seat  on  this  class  of  carriages  was  a  post  of  danger* 
On  the  contrary,  I  maintained  that,  if  a  man  had  be¬ 
come  nervous  from  some  gipsy  prediction  in  his  child¬ 
hood,  allocating  to  a  particular  moon  now  approaching 
some  unknown  danger,  and  he  should  inquire  earnest- 
ly,  ‘‘  Whither  can  I  fly  for  shelter  ?  Is  a  prison  the 
safest  retreat  ?  or  a  lunatic  hospital  ?  or  the  British 
Museum?”  I  should  have  replied,  “  Oh,  no  ;  I’ll  tell 
you  what  to  do.  Take  lodgings  for  the  next  forty 
days  on  the  box  of  his  majesty’s  mail.  Nobody  can 
touch  you  there.  If  it  is  by  bills  at  ninety  days  after 
date  that  you  are  made  unhappy  —  if  noters  and  pro¬ 
testers  are  the  sort  of  wretches  whose  astrological 
shadows  darken  the  house  of  life  —  then  note  you  what 
I  vehemently  protest  —  viz.,  that  no  matter  though  the 
sheriff  and  under-sheriff  in  every  county  should  be  run¬ 
ning  after  you  with  his  posse ,  touch  a  hair  of  your 
head  he  cannot  whilst  you  keep  house,  and  have  your 
vegal  domicile  on  the  box  of  the  mail.  It  is  felony  to 
it  op  the  mail ;  even  the  sheriff  cannot  do  that.  And 
in  extra  touch  of  the  whip  to  the  leaders  (no  great 
matter  if  it  grazes  the  sheriff)  at  any  time  guarantee* 
four  safety.”  In  fact,  a  bedroom  in  »  quiet  house 


526 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


seems  a  safe  enough  retreat,  yet  it  is  liable  to  its  own 
notorious  nuisances  —  to  robbers  by  night,  to  rats,  to 
fire.  But  the  mail  laughs  at  these  terrors.  To  robbers, 
the  answer  is  packed  up  and  ready  for  deJivery  in  the 
barrel  of  the  guard’s  blunderbuss.  Rats  again  !  —  there 
GTi  none  about  mail-coaches,  any  more  than  snakes  is 
Von  Troil’s  Iceland;6*  except,  indeed,  now  and  then  a 
parliamentary  rat,  who  always  hides  his  shame  in  wha» 
I  have  shown  to  be  the  ‘  coal-cellar.’  And  as  to  fire, 
I  never  knew  but  one  in  a  mail-coach,  which  was  in 
the  Exeter  mail,  and  caused  by  an  obstinate  sailor 
bound  to  Devonport.  Jack,  making  light  of  the  law 
and  the  lawgiver  that  had  set  their  faces  against  his 
offence,  insisted  on  taking  up  a  forbidden  seat66  in  the 
rear  of  the  roof,  from  which  he  could  exchange  his 
own  yarns  with  those  of  the  guard.  No  greater  of¬ 
fence  was  then  known  to  mail-coaches ;  it  was  treason, 
it  was  Icesa  majestas ,  it  was  by  tendency  arson ;  and 
the  ashes  of  Jack’s  pipe,  falling  amongst  the  straw  of 

i 

the  hinder  boot  containing  the  mail-bags,  raised  a 
flame  which  (aided  by  the  wind  of  our  motion)  threat¬ 
ened  a  revolution  in  the  republic  of  letters.  Yet  even 
this  left  the  sanctity  of  the  box  unviolated.  In  dig¬ 
nified  repose,  the  coachman  and  myself  sat  on,  resting 
with  benign  composure  upon  our  knowledge  that  the 
fire  would  have  to  burn  its  way  through  four  inside 
passengers  before  it  could  reach  ourselves.  I  remark¬ 
ed  to  the  coachman,  with  a  quotation  from  Virgil’a 
‘  JEneid  ’  really  too  hackneyed  - 

*  Jam  proximus  ardet 
Ucalegon.’ 

But,  recollecting  that  the  Virgilian  part  of  the  coach* 
Sian’s  education  might  have  been  neglected,  I  inter* 


THE  GLOKY  OF  MOTION. 


527 


prefcod  so  far  as  to  say,  that  perhaps  at  that  moment 
the  flames  were  catching  hold  of  our  worthy  brother 
and  inside  passenger,  Ucalegon.  The  coachman  made 
no  answer,  which  is  my  own  way  when  a  stranger 
addresses  me  either  in  Syriac  or  in  Coptic,  but  by  his 
faint  sceptical  smile  he  seemed  to  insinuate  that  ho 
knew  better ;  for  that  Ucalegon,  as  it  happened  was 
not  in  the  way-bill,  and  therefore  could  not  have  been 
booked. 

No  dignity  is  perfect  which  does  not  at  some  point 
ally  itself  with  the  mysterious.  The  connection  of 
the  mail  with  the  state  and  the  executive  government 
—  a  connection  obvious,  but  yet  not  strictly  defined  — 
gave  to  the  whole  mail  establishment  an  official  gran 
deur  which  did  us  service  on  the  roads,  and  invested 
as  with  seasonable  terrors.  Not  the  less  impressive 
were  those  terrors,  because  their  legal  limits  were 
imperfectly  ascertained.  Look  at  those  turnpike  gates  ; 
with  what  deferential  hurry,  with  what  an  obedient 
start,  they  fly  open  at  our  approach  !  Look  at  that 
long  line  of  carts  and  carters  ahead,  audaciously 
usurping  the  very  crest  of  the  road.  Ah !  traitors, 
they  do  not  hear  us  as  yet ;  but,  as  soon  as  the  dread¬ 
ful  blast  of  our  horn  reaches  them  with  proclamation 
of  our  approach,  see  with  what  frenzy  of  trepidation 
they  fly  to  their  horses’  heads,  and  deprecate  our 
wrath  by  the  precipitation  of  their  crane-neck  quar- 
te rings.  Treason  they  feel  to  be  their  crime;  each 
ndividual  carter  feels  himself  under  the  ban  of  con¬ 
fiscation  and  attainder  ;  his  blocd  is  attainted  through 
six  generations;  and  nothing  is  wanting  but  the  heads¬ 
man  and  his  axe,  the  block  and  the  saw-dust,  to  close 
up  the  vista  of  his  horrors.  What  !  shall  it  be  within 


52b 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


Denefit  of  clergy  to  delay  the  king’s  message  on  tha 
high  road  ?  —  to  interrupt  the  great  respirations,  ebb 
and  flood,  sys'ole  and  diastole ,  of  the  national  inter¬ 
course  ?  —  to  endanger  the  safety  of  tidings,  running 
day  and  night  between  all  nations  and  languages  ; 
Or  can  it  he  fancied,  amongst  the  weakest  of  m?!!, 
that  the  bodies  of  the  criminals  will  be  given  up  to 
their  widows  for  Christian  burial?  Now  the  doubts 
which  were  raised  as  to  our  powers  did  more  to  wrap 
them  in  terror,  by  wrapping  them  in  uncertainty,  than 
could  have  been  effected  by  the  sharpest  definitions  of 
the  law  from  the  Quarter  Sessions.  We,  on  our  parts 
(we,  the  collective  mail,  I  mean),  did  our  utmost  to 
exalt  the  idea  of  our  privileges  by  the  insolence  with 
which  we  wielded  them.  Whether  this  insolence 
rested  upon  law  that  gave  it  a  sanction,  or  upon  con¬ 
scious  power  that  haughtily  dispensed  with  that  sanc¬ 
tion,  equally  it  spoke  from  a  potential  station ;  and 
the  agent,  in  each  particular  insolence  of  the  moment, 
was  viewed  reverentially,  as  one  having  authority. 

Sometimes  after  breakfast  his  majesty’s  mail  would 
become  frisky;  and  in  its  difficult  wheelings  amongst 
the  intricacies  of  early  markets,  it  would  upset  an 
apple-cart,  a  cart  loaded  with  eggs,  &c.  Huge  was 
she  affliction  and  dismay,  awful  was  the  smash.  I  as 
far  as  possible,  endeavored  in  such  a  case  to  represent 
the  conscience  and  moral  sensibilities  of  the  mail ; 
and,  when  wildernesses  of  eggs  were  lying  poached 
under  our  horses’  hoofs,  then  would  I  stretch  forth 
my  hands  in  sorrow  saying  (in  words  too  celebrated  at 
that  time,  from  the  false  echoes67  of  Marengo),  ‘  Ah ! 
wherefore  have  we  not  time  to  weep  over  you?’  which 
aria  evidently  impossible,  since,  in  fact,  we  had  no 


THIS  GLORY  OR  MOTION. 


529 


time  to  laugh  over  them.  Tied  to  post-offi.e  allow* 
tnce,  in  some  cases  of  fifty  minutes  for  eleven  miles, 
could  the  royal  mail  pretend  to  undertake  the  office,, 
of  sympathy  and  condolence  ?  Could  it  be  expected 
to  provide  tears  for  the  accidents  of  the  road  ?  If 
even  it  seemed  to  trample  on  humanity,  it  did  so,  I 
felt,  in  discharge  of  its  own  more  peremptory  duties. 

Upholding  the  morality  of  the  mail,  d  fortiori  1 
upheld  its  rights ;  as  a  matter  of  duty,  I  stretched  to 
the  uttermost  its  privilege  of  imperial  precedency,  and 
astonished  weak  minds  by  the  feudal  powers  which  I 
hinted  to  be  lurking  constructively  in  the  charters  ol 
this  proud  establishment.  Once  I  remember  being  on 
the  box  of  the  Holyhead  mail,  between  Shrewsbury 
and  Oswestry,  when  a  tawdry  thing  from  Birmingham, 
some  ‘  Tallyho  ’  or  ‘  Highflyer,’  all  flaunting  with 
green  and  gold,  came  up  alongside  of  us.  What  a 
contrast  to  our  royal  simplicity  of  form  and  color  in 
this  plebeian  wretch  !  The  single  ornament  on  our 
dark  ground  of  chocolate  color  was  the  mighty 
shield  of  the  imperial  arms,  but  emblazoned  in  pro¬ 
portions  as  modest  as  a  signet-ring  bears  to  a  seal  of 
office.  Even  this  was  displayed  only  on  a  single 
panel,  whispering,  rather  than  proclaiming,  our  rela¬ 
tions  to  the  mighty  state ;  whilst  the  beast  from  Bir¬ 
mingham,  our  green-and-gold  friend  from  false,  fleet¬ 
ing,  perjured  Brummagem,  had  a3  much  writing  and 
painling  on  its  sprawling  flanks  as  would  have  puzzled 

k  decipherer  from  the  tombs  of  Luxor.  For  some 

« 

time  this  Birmingham  machine  ran  along  by  our  side 
—  a  piec^i  of  familiarity  that  already  of  itself  seemed 
to  me  sufficiently  jacobinical.  But  all  a c  once  a  move¬ 
ment  ~f  the  houses  announced  a  desperate  intention  ol 

34 


£30  THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 

tearing  us  behind.  ‘  Do  you  see  that  7  ’  I  said  to  tht 
goachman.  —  ‘  I  see,’  was  his  short  answer.  He  waa 
wide  awake,  yet  he  waited  longer  than  seemed  pru¬ 
dent  ;  for  the  horses  of  our  audacious  opponent  had  a 
disagreeable  air  of  freshness  and  power.  But  hia 
motive  was  loyal ;  his  wish  was,  that  the  Birmingham 
conceit  should  be  full-blown  before  he  froze  it.  When 
that  seemed  right,  he  unloosed,  or,  to  speak  by  9 
stronger  word,  he  sprang ,  his  known  resources  :  he 
slipped  our  royal  horses  like  cheetahs,  or  hunting- 
leopards,  after  the  affrighted  game.  How  they  could 
retain  such  a  reserve  of  fiery  power  after  the  work 
they  had  accomplished,  seemed  hard  to  explain.  But 
on  our  side,  besides  the  physical  superiority,  was  a 
tower  of  moral  strength,  namely,  the  king’s  name, 
‘  which  they  upon  the  adverse  faction  wanted.’  Pass¬ 
ing  them  without  an  effort,  as  it  seemed,  we  threw 
them  into  the  rear  with  so  lengthening  an  interval 
between  us,  as  proved  in  itself  the  bitterest  mockery 
of  their  presumption  ;  whilst  our  guard  blew  back  a 
shattering  blast  of  triumph,  that  was  really  too  pain¬ 
fully  full  of  derision. 

I  mention  this  little  incident  for  its  connection  with 
what  followed.  A  Welsh  rustic,  sitting  behind  me, 
asked  if  I  had  not  felt  my  heart  burn  within  me 
during  the  progress  of  the  race  ?  I  said,  with  phi- 
osophic  calmness,  No ;  because  we  were  not  racing 
with  a  mail,  so  that  no  glory  could  be  gained.  In 
%et,  it  was  sufficiently  mortifying  that  such  a  Birming¬ 
ham  thing  snould  dare  to  challenge  us.  The  Welsh¬ 
man  replied,  that  he  didn’t  see  that;  for  that  a  cat 
might  look  at  a  king,  and  a  Brummagem  coach  might 
awfully  race  the  Holyhead  mail.  ‘  Race  us,  if  yof 


THE  GLOHY  OF  MOTION. 


531 


ike,’  I  replied,  4  though  even  that  lias  an  air  of  sedi¬ 
tion,  but  not  beat  us.  This  would  have  been  treason ; 
ind  for  its  own  sake  I  am  glad  that  the  “  Tallyho”  was 
disappointed.’  So  dissatisfied  did  the  Welshman  seem 
with  this  opinion,  that  at  last  I  was  obliged  to  tell  him  & 
very  fine  story  from  one  of  our  elder  dramatists- — viz,, 
that  once,  in  some  far  oriental  kingdom,  when  the 
sultan  of  all  the  land,  with  his  princes,  ladies,  and 
chief  omrahs,  were  flying  their  falcons,  a  hawk  sud¬ 
denly  flew  at  a  majestic  eagle  ;  and  in  defiance  of  th© 
eagle’s  natural  advantages,  in  contempt  also  of  th© 
eagle’s  traditional  royalty,  and  before  the  whole  as¬ 
sembled  field  of  astonished  spectators  from  Agra,  and 
Lahore,  killed  the  eagle  on  the  spot.  Amazement 
seized  the  sultan  at  the  unequal  contest,  and  burning 
admiration  for  its  unparalleled  result.  He  commanded 
that  the  hawk  should  be  brought  before  him ;  he 
caressed  the  bird  with  enthusiasm  ;  and  he  ordered 
that,  for  the  commemoration  of  his  matchless  courage, 
a  diadem  of  gold  and  rubies  should  be  solemnly  placed 
on  the  hawk’s  head ;  but  then  that,  immediately  after 
♦■his  solemn  coronation,  the  bird  should  be  led  off  to 
execution,  as  the  most  valiant  indeed  of  traitors,  but 
not  the  less  a  traitor,  as  having  dared  to  rise  rebel- 
liously  against  his  liege  lord  and  anointed  sovereign, 
the  eagle.  ‘Now,’  said  I  to  the  Welshman,  ‘to  yon 
ind  me,  as  men  of  refined  sensibilities,  how  painful  it 
Would  have  been  that  this  poor  Brummagem  brute, 
-,ae  “  T&llyho,”  in  the  impossible  case  of  a  victory  over 
ns,  should  have  been  crowned  with.  Birmingham  tinsel, 
with  paste  diamonds,  and  Roman  pearls,  and  then  led 
to  instant  execution.’  The  Welsnman  doubted  i! 
that  could  be  warranted  by  law.  And  when  I  hinted 


532 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


at  tli 3  6th.  of  Edward  Longshanks,  chap.  18,  for  regu¬ 
lating  the  precedency  of  coaches,  as  being  probably 
the  statute  relied  on  for  the  capital  punishment  of 
such  offences,  he  replied  drily,  that  if  the  attempt  to 
pass  a  mail  really  were  treasonable,  it  w'as  a  pity  that 
the  4  Tallyho  ’  appeared  to  have  so  imperfect  an  ac¬ 
quaintance  with  law. 

The  modern  modes  of  travelling  cannot  compare 
with  the  old  mail-coach  system  in  grandeur  and 
power.  They  boast  of  more  velocity,  not,  however, 
as  a  consciousness,  but  as  a  fact  of  our  lifeless  knowl¬ 
edge,  resting  upon  alien  evidence ;  as,  for  instance, 
because  somebody  says  that  we  have  gone  fifty  miles 
in  the  hour,  though  we  are  far  from  feeling  it  as  a  per¬ 
sonal  experience,  or  upon  the  evidence  of  a  result,  as 
that  actually  we  find  ourselves  in  York  four  houra 
after  leaving  London.  Apart  from  such  an  assertion, 
or  such  a  result,  I  myself  am  little  aware  of  the  pace. 
But,  seated  on  the  old  mail-coach,  we  needed  no  evi¬ 
dence  out  of  ourselves  to  indicate  the  velocity.  On 
this  system  the  word  was,  Non  magna  loquimur ,  as 
upon  railways,  but  vivimus.  Yes,  ‘magna  vivimus;' 
we  do  not  make  verbal  ostentation  of  our  grandeurs, 
we  realize  our  grandeurs  in  act,  and  in  the  very  ex¬ 
perience  of  life.  The  vital  experience  of  the  glad 
animal  sensibilities  made  doubts  impossible  on  the 
question  of  our  speed ;  we  heard  our  speed,  we  saw  it, 
we  felt  it  as  a  thrilling;  and  this  speed  was  not  the 
croduct  of  blind  insensate  agencies,  that  had  no  sym¬ 
pathy  to  give,  but  was  incarnated  in  the  fiery  eyeballs 
3>f  the  noblest  amongst  brutes,  in  his  dilated  nostril, 
ip&smodic  muscles,  and  thunder-beating  hoofs.  The 
fusibility  of  the  horse,  uttering  itself  in  the  mania* 


THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION-. 


533 


ight  of  his  eye,  might  be  the  last  vibration  of  such  § 
movement ;  the  glory  of  Salamanca  might  be  the  first. 
But  the  intervening  links  that  connected  them,  that 
spread  the  earthquake  of  battle  into  the  eyeball  of  the 
horse,  were  the  heart  of  man  and  its  electric  thrilling® 
—  kindling  in  the  rapture  of  the  fiery  strife,  and  then 
propagating  its  own  tumults  by  contagious  shouts  and 
gestures  to  the  heart  of  his  servant  the  horse. 

But  now,  on  the  new  system  of  travelling,  iron 
tubes  and  boilers  have  disconnected  man’s  heart  from 
the  ministers  of  his  locomotion.  Nile  nor  Trafalgar 
has  power  to  raise  an  extra  bubble  in  a  steam-kettle. 
The  galvanic  cycle  is  broken  up  for  ever ;  man’s  impe¬ 
rial  nature  no  longer  sends  itself  forward  through  the 
electric  sensibility  of  the  horse ;  the  inter-agencies  are 
gone  in  the  mode  of  communication  between  the  horse 
and  his  master,  out  of  which  grew  so  many  aspects  of 
sublimity  under  accidents  of  mists  that  hid,  or  sudden 
olazes  that  revealed,  of  mobs  that  agitated,  or  midnight 
solitudes  that  awed.  Tidings,  fitted  to  convulse  all 
nations,  must  henceforwards  travel  by  culinary  pro¬ 
cess;  and  the  trumpet  that  once  announced  from  afar 
the  laurelled  mail,  heart-shaking,  when  heard  scream¬ 
ing  on  the  wind,  and  proclaiming  itself  through  the 
darkness  to  every  village  or  solitary  house  on  its  route, 
aas  now  given  way  for  ever  to  the  pot- wallopings  cf 
the  boiler. 

Thus  have  perished  multiform  openings  for  public 
expressions  of  interest,  scenical  yet  natural,  in  great 
national  tidings ;  for  revelations  of  faces  and  group® 
that  could  not  offer  them^eives  amongst  the  fluctuating 
Blobs  of  a  railway  station.  The  gatherings  of  gazers 
ibout  a  laurelled  mail  nad  "m*  centre,  and  acknowl- 


&34  THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 

edged  one  sole  interest.  But  tlie  crowds  attending  at 
a  railway  station  have  as  little  unity  as  running  water 
end  own  as  many  centres  as  there  are  separate  car¬ 
riages  in  the  train. 

How  else,  for  example.,  than  as  a  constant  watcher 
for  .he  dawn,  and  for  the  London  mail  that  in  summer 
months  entered  about  daybreak  amongst  the  lawny 
thickets  of  Marlborough  forest,  couldst  thou,  sweel 
Fanny  of  the  Bath  road,  have  become  the  glorified 
inmate  of  my  dreams?  Yet  Fanny,  as  the  loveliest 
young  woman  for  face  and  person  that  perhaps  in  my 
whole  life  I  have  beheld,  merited  the  station  which 
even  now,  from  a  distance  of  forty  years,  she  holds  ir 
my  dreams ;  yes,  though  by  links  of  natural  association 
she  brings  along  with  her  a  troop  of  dreadful  creatures, 
fabulous  and  not  fabulous,  that  are  more  abominable 
to  the  heart,  than  Fanny  and  the  dawn  are  delightful. 

Miss  Fanny  of  the  Bath  road,  strictly  speaking, 
lived  at  a  mile’s  distance  from  the  road ;  but  came  so 
continually  to  meet  the  mail,  that  I  on  my  frequent 
transits  rarely  missed  her,  and  naturally  connected  hex 
image  with  the  great  thoroughfare  where  only  I  had 
ever  seen  her.  Why  she  came  so  punctually,  I  do  not 
exactly  know ;  but  I  believe  with  some  burden  of 
commissions  to  be  executed  in  Bath,  which  had  gath¬ 
ered  to  her  own  residence  as  a  central  rendezvous  for 
converging  them.  The  mail-coachman  who  drove  the 
Bath  mail,  and  wore  the  royal  livery,68  happened  to  be 
Fanny’s  grandfather.  A  good  man  he  was,  that  loved 
S.is  beautiful  granddaughter ;  and,  loving  her  wisely 
was  vigilant  over  her  deportment  in  any  case  where 
young  Oxford  might  happen  to  be  concerned.  Did  mi 
ranhy  then  suggest  that  I  myself,  individually,  could  faJ 


THE  GLOE.T  OF  MOTION. 


535 


mthin  the  line  of  his  terrors?  Certainly  not.  as 
regarded  any  physical  pretensions  that  I  could  plead; 
for  Fanny  (as  a  chance  passenger  from  her  own  neigh¬ 
borhood  once  told  me)  counted  in  her  train  a  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  professed  admirers,  if  not  open  aspi¬ 
rants  to  her  favor ;  and  probably  not  one  of  the  v  hole 
brigade  but  excelled  myself  in  personal  advantages, 
Ulysses  even,  with  the  unfair  advantage  of  his  accursed 
bow,  could  hardly  have  undertaken  that  amount  cf 
suitors.  So  the  danger  might  have  seemed  slight  - — 
only  that  woman  is  universally  aristocratic ;  it  is 
amongst  her  nobilities  of  heart  that  she  is  so.  Now, 
the  aristocratic  distinctions  in  my  favor  might  easily 
with  Miss  Fanny  have  compensated  my  physical  defi¬ 
ciencies.  Did  I  then  make  love  to  Fanny  ?  Why, 
res ;  about  as  much  love  as  one  could  make  whilst  the 
mail  was  changing  horses  —  a  process  which,  ten  years 
later,  did  not  occupy  above  eighty  seconds  ;  but  then 
—  viz.,  about  Waterloo  —  it  occupied  five  times  eighty. 
Now,  four  hundred  seconds  offer  a  field  quite  ample 
•  enough  for  whispering  into  a  young  woman’s  ear  a 
great  deal  of  truth,  and  (by  way  of  parenthesis)  some 
trifle  of  falsehood.  Grandpapa  did  right,  therefore,  to 
vatch  me.  And  yet,  as  happens  too  often  to  the 
grandpapas  of  earth,  in  a  contest  with  the  admirers  of 
granddaughters,  how  vainly  would  he  have  watched 
me  had  I  meditated  any  evil  whispers  to  Fanny  !  She, 
it  is  my  belief,  would  have  protected  herself  against 
any  man’s  evil  suggestions.  But  he,  as  the  result 
showed,  could  not  have  intercepted  the  opportunities 
for  such  suggestions.  Yet,  why  not  ?  Was  he  not 
active?  Was  he  not  bloom.ng  '  Blooming  he  was  a* 
Fanny  herself. 


536 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


‘  Say,  all  our  praises  why  should  lords  - —  * 

Stop,  tbit’s  not  the  line. 

*  Say,  all  our  roses  why  should  girls  engross  ?  ’ 

The  coachman  showed  rosy  blossoms  on  his  fac« 
deeper  even  than  his  granddaughter’s  —  his  being 
drawn  from  the  ale  cask,  Fanny’s  from  the  fountains 
of  the  dawn.  But,  in  spite  of  his  blooming  face,  some 
infirmities  he  had ;  and  one  particularly  in  which  he 
too  much  resembled  a  crocodile.  This  lay  in  a  mon¬ 
strous  inaptitude  for  turning  round.  The  crocodile,  I 
presume,  owes  that  inaptitude  to  the  absurd  length  of 
his  back ;  but  in  our  grandpapa  it  arose  rather  from 
the  absurd  breadth  of  his  back,  combined,  possibly, 
with  some  gr  jvsing  stiffness  in  his  legs.  Now,  upon 
this  crocodile  infirmity  of  his  I  planted  a  human  ad¬ 
vantage  for  tendering  my  homage  to  Miss  Fanny.  In 
defiance  of  all  his  honorable  vigilance,  no  sooner  had 
he  presented  to  us  his  mighty  Jovian  back  (what  a 
field  for  displaying  to  mankind  his  royal  scarlet !  ’), 
whilst  inspecting  professionally  the  buckles,  the  straps, 
and  the  silvery  turrets69  of  his  harness,  than  I  raised 
Miss  Fanny's  hand  to  my  lips,  and,  by  the  mixed  ten¬ 
derness  and  respectfulness  of  my  manner,  caused  her 
easily  to  understand  how  happy  it  would  make  me  to 
rank  upon  her  list  as  No.  10  or  12,  in  which  case  a 
few  casualties  amongst  her  lovers  (and  observe,  they 
hanged  liberally  in  those  days  might  have  promoted 
me  speedily  to  the  top  of  the  tree  ;  as,  on  the  other 
feand,  with  how  much  loyalty  of  submission  I  acqui- 
isced  by  anticipation  in  her  award,  supposing  that  she 
#houH  plant  me  in  the  very  rearward  of  her  favor,  ai 
No.  1 9 D  — 1 .  Most  truly  I  loved  this  beautiful  ana 
mgenucus  gir1  ;  and  had  it  not  beer  for  the  Batl 


THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION.  537 

mail,  timing  all  courtships  oy  post-office  allowance, 
heaven  only  knows  what  might  have  come  of  it.  Peo- 
pie  talk  of  being  over  head  and  ears  in  love  ;  now,  the 
mail  was  the  cause  that  I  sank  only  over  ears  in  lcve, 
which,  you  know,  still  left  a  trifle  of  brain  to  overlook 
the  whole  conduct  of  the  affair. 

Ah,  reader  !  when  I  look  back  upon  those  days,  it 
seems  to  me  that  all  things  change  — -  all  things  perish. 
‘  Perish  the  roses  and  the  palms  of  kings  :  ’  perish  even 
the  crowns  and  trophies  of  Waterloo  :  thunder  and 
lightning  are  not  the  thunder  and  lightning  which  I 
remember.  Roses  are  degenerating.  The  Fannies  of 
our  island  —  though  this  I  say  with  reluctance  —  are 
not  visibly  improving  ;  and  the  Bath  road  is  notoriously 
superannuated.  Crocodiles,  you  will  say,  are  station¬ 
ary.  Mr.  Waterton  tells  me  that  the  crocodile  does 
not  change  ;  that  a  cayman,  in  fact,  or  an  alligator,  is 
just  as  good  for  riding  upon  as  he  was  in  the  time  of 
the  Pharaohs.  That  may  be ;  but  the  reason  is,  that 
the  crocodile  does  not  live  fast  —  he  is  a  slow  coach. 
I  believe  it  is  generally  understood  among  naturalists, 
that  the  crocodile  is  a  blockhead.  It  is  my  own  im¬ 
pression  that  the  Pharaohs  were  also  blockheads. 
Now,  as  the  Pharaohs  and  the  crocodile  domineered 
over  Egyptian  society,  this  accounts  for  a  singular 
mistake  that  prevailed  through  innumerable  genera¬ 
tions  on  the  Nile.  The  crocodile  made  the  ridiculous 
blunder  of  supposing  man  to  be  meant  chiefly  for  his 
ywn  eating.  Man,  taking  a  different  view  of  the  sub¬ 
ject,  naturally  met  that  mistake  by  another  :  he  viewed 
the  crocodile  as  a  thing  sometimes  to  worship,  but  al¬ 
ways  to  run  away  from.  And  this  continued  until  Mr. 
Waterton70  changed  the  relations  between  the  aninrua. 


53? 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


The  mode  of  escaping  from  the  reptile  he  shewed  Ui 
oc,  not  by  running  away,  but  by  leaping  on  its  back, 
booted  and  spurred.  The  two  animals  bad  misunder¬ 
stood  each  other.  The  use  of  the  crocodile  has  now 
been  cleared  up  —  viz.,  to  be  ridden;  and  the  finAi 
cause  of  man  is,  that  he  may  improve  the  health  of  the 
crocodile  by  riding  him  a  fox-hunting  before  breakfast. 
And  it  is-  pretty  certain  that  any  crocodile,  who  ha* 
been  regularly  hunted  through  the  season,  and  is  mas¬ 
ter  of  the  weight  he  carries,  will  take  a  six-barred  gate 
now  as  well  as  ever  he  would  have  done  in  the  infancy 
of  the  pyramids. 

If,  therefore,  the  crocodile  does  not  change,  all  things 
else  undeniably  do  :  even  the  shadow  of  the  pyramids 
grows  less.  And  often  the  restoration  in  vision  of 
Fanny  and  the  Bath  road,  makes  me  too  pathetically 
sensible  of  that  truth.  Out  of  the  darkness,  if  I  hap¬ 
pen  to  call  back  the  image  of  Fanny,  up  rises  suddenly 
from  a  gulf  of  forty  years  a  rose  in  June  ;  or,  if  I  think 
for  an  instant  of  the  rose  in  June,  up  rises  the  heavenly 
face  of  Fanny.  One  after  the  other,  like  the  antipho- 
nies  in  the  choral  service,  rise  Fanny  and  the  rose  in 
June,  then  back  again  the  rose  in  June  and  Fanny. 
Then  come  both  together,  as  in  a  chorus  —  roses  and 
Fannies,  Fannies  and  roses,  without  end,  thick  as  blos¬ 
soms  in  paradise.  Then  comes  a  venerable  crocodile, 
in  a  royal  livery  of  scarlet  and  gold,  with  sixteen 
capes ;  and  the  crocodile  is  driving  four-in-hand  froir 
the  box  of  the  Bath  mail.  And  suddenly  we  upon  the 
mail  are  pulled  up  by  a  mighty  dial,  sculptured  with 
the  hours,  that  mingle  with  the  heavens  and  the  hea 
ripnlv  host.  Then  all  at  once  we  are  arrived  at  Marl- 


1  HE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 


53$ 


roe-deer ;  the  deer  and  their  fawns  retire  into  the 
iewy  thickets ;  the  thickets  are  rich  with  roses  ;  once 
again  the  roses  call  up  the  sweet  countenance  of  Fanny ; 
and  she,  being  the  granddaughter  of  a  crocodile,  awak¬ 
ens  a  dreadful  host  of  semi-legendary  animals — griffins, 
dragons,  basilisks,  sphinxes  —  till  at  length  the  whole 
vision  of  fighting  images  crowds  into  one  towering 
armorial  shield,  a  vast  emblazonry  of  human  charities 
and  human  loveliness  that  have  perished,  but  quartered 
heraldically  with  unutterable  and  demoniac  natures, 
whilst  over  all  rises,  as  a  surmounting  crest,  one  fair 
female  hand,  with  the  forefinger  pointing,  in  sweet, 
sorrowful  admonition,  upwards  to  heaven,  where  is 
sculptured  the  eternal  writing  which  proclaims  the 
frailty  of  earth  and  her  children. 

GOING  DOWN  WITH  VICTORY. 

But  the  grandest  chapter  of  our  experience,  within 
the  whole  mail-coach  service,  was  on  those  occasions 
when  we  went  down  from  London  with  the  news  of 
victory.  A  period  of  about  ten  years  stretched  from 
Trafalgar  to  Waterloo  ;  the  second  and  third  years  of 
which  period  (1806  and  1807)  were  comparatively 
sterile  ;  but  the  other  nine  (from  1805  to  1815  inclu¬ 
sively)  furnished  a  long  succession  of  victories ;  the 
least  of  which,  in  such  a  contest  of  Titans,  had  an 
inappreciable  value  of  position  —  partly  for  its  absolute 
interference  with  the  plans  of  our  enemy,  but  still  more 
from  its  keeping  alive  through  central  Europe  ihe 
sense  of  a  deep-seated  vulnerability  in  France.  Even 
to  tease  the  coasts  of  our  enemv,  to  mortify  them  by 
'ontinual  blockades,  to  insult  them  by  capturing  if  if 
T«.re  but  a  baubling  schooner  under  the  eyes  of  thei/ 


540  THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 

arrogant  armies,  repeated  from  time  to  time  a  sullen 
proclamation  of  power  lodged  in  one  quarter  to  which 
the  hopes  of  Christendom  turned  in  secret.  How  much 
more  loudly  must  this  proclamation  have  spoken  in  the 
audacity72  of  having  bearded  the  elite  of  their  troops, 
and  having  beaten  them  in  pitched  battles  !  Five  years 
of  life  it  was  worth  paying  down  for  the  privilege  of  an 
outside  place  on  a  mail-coach,  when  carrying  down  the 
rim;  tidings  of  any  such  event.  And  it  is  to  be  noted 
that,  from  our  insular  situation,  and  the  multitude  of 
our  frigates  disposable  for  the  rapid  transmission  of 
mtelligence,  rarely  did  any  unauthorized  rumor  3teal 
away  a  prelibation  from  the  first  aroma  of  the  regular 
despatches.  The  government  news  was  generally  the 
earliest  news. 

From  eight  p.  m.,  to  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  later, 
imagine  the  mails  assembled  on  parade  in  Lombard 
Street,  where,  at  that  rime,73  and  not  in  St.  Martin’s- 
le-Grand,  was  seated  the  General  Post-office.  In  what 
exact  strength  we  mustered  I  do  not  remember ;  but, 
from  the  length  of  each  separate  attelage ,  we  filled  the 
street,  though  a  long  one,  and  though  we  were  drawn 
up  in  double  file.  On  any  night  the  spectacle  was 
beautiful.  The  absolute  perfection  of  all  the  appoint¬ 
ments  about  the  carriages  and  the  harness,  their 
strength,  their  brilliant  cleanliness,  their  beautiful 
simplicity  —  but,  more  than  all,  the  royal  magnificence 
.f  the  horses  —  were  what  might  first  have  fixed  the 
ttention.  Every  carriage,  on  every  morning  in  the 
year,  was  taken  down  to  an  official  inspector  for  exam 
Ination  —  wheels,  axles,  linchpins,  poles,  glasses,  lamps, 
were  ail  critically  probed  and  tested.  Every  part  of 
?very  carriage  had  been  cleaned  every  horse  had  bees 


THE  GLORY  OE  MOTION.  541 

groomed,  with,  as  much  rigor  as  if  they  belonged  to  a 
private  gentleman ;  and  that  part  of  the  spectacle 
offered  itself  always.  But  the  night  before  us  is  a 
night  of  victory  ;  and,  behold  !  to  the  ordinary  display, 
what  a  heart-shaking  addition! — horses,  men,  car- 
riages,  all  are  dressed  in  laurels  and  flowers,  oak-leaver 
and  ribbons.  The  guards,  as  being  officially  his  Maj¬ 
esty’s  servants,  and  of  the  coachmen  such  as  are  within 
the  privilege  of  the  post-office,  wear  the  royal  liveries 
cf  course  ;  and  as  it  is  summer  (for  all  the  land  victo¬ 
ries  were  naturally  won  in  summer),  they  wear,  on  this 
fine  evening,  these  liveries  exposed  to  view,  without 
any  covering  of  upper  coats.  Such  a  costume,  and  the 
elaborate  arrangement  of  the  laurels  in  their  hats,  dilate 
their  hearts,  by  giving  to  them  openly  a  personal  con¬ 
nection  with  the  great  news,  in  which  already  th^y 
have  the  general  interest  of  patriotism.  That  great 
national  sentiment  surmounts  and  quells  all  sense  ci 
ordinary  distinctions.  Those  passengers  who  happen 
to  be  gentlemen  are  now  hardly  to  be  distinguished  as 
such  except  by  dress ;  for  the  usual  reserve  of  their 
manner  in  speaking  to  the  attendants  has  on  this  night 
melted  away.  One  heart,  one  pride,  one  glory,  con¬ 
nects  every  man  by  the  transcendent  bond  of  his 
national  blood.  The  spectators,  who  are  numerous 
beyond  precedent,  express  their  sympathy  with  these 
feivent  feelings  by  continual  hurrahs.  Every  me  men t 
are  shout  ed  aloud  by  the  post-office  servants,  and  sum¬ 
moned  to  draw  up,  the  great  ancestral  names  of  citien 
mown  to  history  through  a  thousand  years  —  Lincoln, 
vVinchester,  Portsmouth,  Gloucester,  Oxford,  Bristol, 
Manchester,  York,  Newcastle,  Edinburgh,  Glasgow, 
Perth,  Stirling,  Aberdeen  —  expressing  the  grander 


542 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL  COACH. 


of  the  empire  by  the  antiquity  of  its  towns,  and  ths 
grandeur  of  the  mail  establishment  by  the  diffusiva 
radiation  of  its  separate  missions.  Every  moment  you 
hear  thunder  of  lids  locked  down  upon  the  mail-bags. 
That  sound  to  each  individual  mail  is  the  signa)  for 
drawing  off,  which  process  is  the  finest  part  of  the 
entire  spectacle.  Then  corue  the  horses  into  play. 
Horses !  can  these  be  horses  that  bound  off  with  ths 
action  and  gestures  of  leopards  ?  What  stir  !  —  what 
sea-like  ferment !  —  what  a  thundering  of  wheels  !  — - 
what  a  trampling  of  hoofs !  —  what  a  sounding  of 
trumpets  !  —  what  farewell  cheers  —  what  redoubling 
peals  of  brotherly  congratulation,  connecting  the  name 
of  the  particular  mail  —  ‘  Liverpool  for  ever  !  ’  —  with 
the  name  of  the  particular  victory — ‘  Badajoz  for 
ever  !  ’  or  ‘  Salamanca  for  ever  !  ’  The  half-slumbering 
consciousness  that,  all  night  long  and  all  the  next 
day  —  perhaps  for  even  a  longer  period  —  many  of 
these  mails,  like  fire  racing  along  a  train  of  gunpow¬ 
der,  will  be  kindling  at  every  instant  new  successions 
of  burning  joy,  has  an  obscure  effect  of  multiplying 
the  victory  itself,  by  multiplying  to  the  imagination 
into  infinity  the  stages  of  its  progressive  diffusion.  A 
fiery  arrow  seems  to  be  let  loose,  which  from  that  mo¬ 
ment  is  destined  to  travel,  without  intermission,  west¬ 
wards  for  three  hundred 74  miles  —  northwards  for 
six  hundred ;  and  the  sympathy  of  our  Lombard 
Street  friends  at  parting  is  exalted  a  hundredfold  by 
sort  of  visionary  sympathy  with  the  yet  slumbering 
sympathies  which  in  so  vast  a  succession  we  p.re  going 
wo  awake. 

Liberated  from  the  embarrassments  of  the  city,  and 
tailing  into  the  broad  uncrowded  avenues  ol  the  north' 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


543 


ern  suburbs,  we  soon  begin  to  enter  upon  our  natural 
pace  of  ten  miles  an  hour.  In  the  broad  light  of  the 
Bummer  evening,  the  sun,  perhaps,  only  just  at  the 
point  of  setting,  we  are  seen  from  every  story  of  every 
house.  Heads  of  every  age  crowd  to  the  windows  — 
young  and  old  understand  the  language  of  our  victori¬ 
ous  symbols  —  and  rolling  volleys  of  sympathizing 
cheers  ran  along  us,  behind  us,  and  before  us.  The 
beggar,  rearing  himself  against  the  wall,  forgets  hig 
lameness  —  real  or  assumed  —  thinks  not  of  his  whin¬ 
ing  trade,  but  stands  erect,  with  bold  exulting  smiles, 
as  we  pass  him.  The  victory  has  healed  him,  and 
says.  Be  thou  whole !  Women  and  children,  from 
garrets  alike  and  cellars,  through  infinite  London,  look 
down  or  look  up  with  loving  eyes  upon  our  gay  rib¬ 
bons  and  our  martial  laurels ;  sometimes  kiss  their 
nands  ;  sometimes  hang  out,  as  signals  of  affection, 
pocket-handkerchiefs,  aprons,  dusters,  anything  that, 
by  catching  the  summer  breezes,  will  express  an  aerial 
iubilation.  On  the  London  side  of  Barnet,  to  which 
we  draw  near  within  a  few  minutes  after  nine,  observe 
that  private  carriage  which  is  approaching  us.  The 
weather  being  so  warm,  the  glasses  are  all  dowm ;  and 
one  may  read,  as  on  the  stage  of  a  theatre,  everything 
that  goes  on  within.  It  contains  three  ladies  —  one 
likely  to  be  ‘  mamma,’  and  two  of  seventeen  or  eigh¬ 
teen,  who  are  probably  her  daughters.  What  lovely 
animation,  what  beautiful  unpremeditated  pantomime, 
explaining  to  us  every  syllable  that  passes,  in  these  in¬ 
genuous  girls  !  By  the  sudden  start  and  raising  of  the 
hands,  on  first  discovering  our  laurelled  equipage  !  — 
5y  the  sudden  movement  and  appeal  to  the  elder  lady 
jrom  both  cf  them  —  and  by  the  heightened  color  os 


544 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


their  animated  countenances,  we  can  almost  hear  ihert 
Baying,  ‘  See,  see  !  Look  at  their  laurels !  Oh, 
mamma !  there  has  been  a  great  battle  in  Spain , 
and  it  has  been  a  great  victory.’  In  a  moment  wo 
arc  on  the  point  of  passing  them.  We  passengers  — 
I  on  the  box,  and  the  two  on  the  roof  behind  me  — 
raise  our  hats  to  the  ladies ;  the  coachman  makes  his 
professional  salute  with  the  whip  ;  the  guard  even, 
though  punctilious  on  the  matter  of  his  dignity  as  an 
officer  under  the  crown,  touches  his  hat.  The  ladie 
move  to  us,  in  return,  with  a  winning  graciousness  of 
gesture  ;  all  smile  on  each  side  in  a  way  that  nobody 
could  misunderstand,  and  that  nothing  short  of  a  grand 
national  sympathy  could  so  instantaneously  prompt. 
Will  these  ladies  say  that  we  are  nothing  to  them  ? 
Oh,  no  ;  they  will  not  say  that.  They  cannot  deny  — 
they  do  not  deny  —  that  for  this  night  they  are  our 
sisters  ;  gentle  or  simple,  scholar  or  illiterate  servant, 
for  twelve  hours  to  come,  we  on  the  outside  have  the 
honor  to  he  their  brothers.  Those  poor  women,  again, 
who  stop  to  gaze  upon  us  with  delight  at  the  entrance 
of  Barnet,  and  seem,  by  their  air  of  weariness,  to  he 
returning  from  labor  —  do  you  mean  to  say  that  they 
are  washerwomen  and  charwomen  ?  Oh,  my  poor 
friend,  you  are  quite  mistaken.  I  assure  you  they 
stand  in  a  far  higher  rank  ;  for  this  one  night  they  feel 
themselves  by  birthright  to  be  daughters  of  England, 
and  answer  to  no  humbler  title. 

Every  joy,  however,  even  rapturous  joy — such  is 
the  sad  law  of  earth  —  may  carry  with  it  grief,  or  fear 
»f  grief,  to  some.  Three  miles  beyond  Barnet,  we  seu 
approaching  us  another  private  carriage,  nearly  repeat 
ing  the  circumstances  of  the  former  case.  Here,  also 


THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 


545 


IRe  glasses  are  all  down  —  here,  also,  is  an  elderly 
lady  seated  ;  but  the  two  daughters  are  missing ;  for 
the  single  young  person  sitting  by  the  lady’s  side, 
seems  to  be  an  attendant  —  so  I  judge  from  her  dress, 
and  her  air  of  respectful  reserve.  The  lady  is  in 
mourning ;  and  her  countenance  expresses  sorrow. 
At  first  she  does  not  look  up  ;  so  that  I  believe  she 
is  not  aware  of  our  approach,  until  she  hears  the 
measured  beating  of  our  horses’  hoofs.  Then  she 
raises  her  eyes  to  settle  them  painfully  on  our  tri¬ 
umphal  equipage.  Our  decorations  explain  the  case 
to  her  at  once ;  but  she  beholds  them  with  appa¬ 
rent  anxiety,  or  even  with  terror.  Some  time  before 
this,  I,  finding  it  difficult  to  hit  a  flying  mark,  when 
embarrassed  by  the  coachman’s  person  and  reins  inter¬ 
vening,  had  given  to  the  guard  a  ‘  Courier  ’  evening 
paper,  containing  the  gazette,  for  the  next  carriage  that 
might  pass.  Accordingly  he  to-ssed  it  in,  so  folded 
that  the  huge  capitals  expressing  some  such  legend 
as  —  glorious  victory,  might  catch  the  eye  at 
once.  To  see  the  paper,  however,  at  all,  interpreted 
as  it  was  by  our  ensigns  of  triumph,  explained  every¬ 
thing  ;  and,  if  the  guard  were  right  in  thinking  the 
lady  to  have  received  it  with  a*gesture  of  horror 
it  could  not  be  doubtful  that  she  had  suffered  some 
deep  personal  affliction  in  connection  with  this  Span¬ 
ish  war. 

Here,  now,  was  the  case  of  one  who,  having  formerly 
suffered,  might,  erroneously  perhaps,  be  distressing 
herself  with  anticipations  of  another  similar  suffering. 
That  same  night,  and  hardly  three  hours  later,  oc« 
eujrred  the  reverse  case.  A  poor  woman,  who  too 
•robably  would  find  herself,  in  a  day  or  two,  to 

35 


546 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-DOACH. 


nave  suffered  the  heaviest  afflictions  by  the  battle 
blindly  allowed  herself  to  express  an  exultation  t'? 
unmeasured  in  the  nf'ws  and  its  details,  as  gave  to  hei 
the  appearance  which  amongst  Celtic  Highlanders  is 
called  fey.  This  was  at  some  little  town  where  we 
changed  horses  an  hour  or  two  after  midnight.  Soma 
fair  or  wake  had  kept  the  people  up  out  of  their  beds, 
and  had  occasioned  a  partial  illumination  of  the  stalls 
and  booths,  presenting  an  unusual  but  very  impressive 
effect.  W e  saw  many  lights  moving  about  as  we  drew 
near ;  and  perhaps  the  most  striking  scene  on  the 
whole  route  was  our  reception  at  this  place.  This 
flashing  of  torches  and  the  beautiful  radiance  of  blue 
lights  (technically,  Bengal  lights)  upon  the  .  heads  of 
our  horses  ;  the  fine  effect  of  such  a  showery  and 
ghostly  illumination  falling  upon  our  flowers  and 
glittering  laurels  ; 75  whilst  all  around  ourselves,  that 
formed  a  centre  of  light,  the  darkness  gathered  on  the 
rear  and  flanks  in  massy  blackness ;  these  optical 
splendors,  together  with  the  prodigious  enthusiasm 
of  the  people,  composed  a  picture  at  once  scenical 
and  affecting,  theatrical  and  holy.  As  we  staid  for 
three  or  four  minutes,  I  alighted  ;  and  immediately 
from  a  dismantled  stall  in  the  street,  where  no  doubt 
she  had  been  presiding  through  the  earlier  part  of  the 
night,  advanced  eagerly  a  middle-aged  woman.  The 
sight  of  my  newspaper  it  was  that  had  drawn  her  at¬ 
tention  upon  myself.  The  victory  which  we  were 
carrying  dowm  to  the  provinces  on  this  occasion,  wai 
the  imperfect  one  of  Talavera  —  imperfect  for  its  re¬ 
sults,  such  was  the  virtual  treachery  of  the  Spanish 
general,  Cuesta,  but  not  imperfect  in  its  ever-memora* 
Vie  heroism  I  told  her  the  main  outline  of  the  battla 


THE  GLORY  OF  MOTION. 


547 


Fbe  agitation  of  her  enthusiasm  had  been  so  con* 
Bpicuous  when  listening,  and  when  first  applying  foi 
information,  that  I  could  not  but  ask  her  if  she  had 
not  some  relative  in  the  Peninsular  army.  Oh,  yes  ; 
her  only  son  was  there.  In  what  regiment?  He  was 
a  trooper  in  the  23d  Dragoons.  My  heart  sank  within 
me  as  she  made  that  answer.  This  sublime  regiment, 
which  an  Englishman  should  never  mention  without 
raising  his  hat  to  their  memory,  had  made  the  most 
memorable  and  effective  charge  recorded  in  military 
annals.  They  leaped  their  horses  —  over  a  trench 
where  they  could,  into  it,  and  with  the  result  of  death 
or  mutilation  when  they  could  not .  Vvrhat  proportion 
cleared  the  trench  is  nowhere  stated.  Those  who  did , 
closed  up  and  went  down  upon  the  enemy  with  such 
divinity  of  fervor  (I  use  the  word  divinity  by  design  : 
the  inspiration  of  God  must  have  prompted  this  move¬ 
ment  to  those  whom  even  then  he  was  calling  to  his 
presence),  that  two  results  followed.  As  regarded  the 
enemy,  this  23d  Dragoons,  not,  I  believe,  originally 
three  hundred  and  fifty  strong,  paralyzed  a  French 
column,  six  thousand  strong,  then  ascended  the  hill, 
and  fixed  the  gaze  of  the  whole  French  army.  An 
regarded  themselves,  the  23d  were  supposed  at  first 
to  have  been  barely  not  annihilated  ;  but  eventually, 
I  believe,  about  one  in  four  survived.  And  this,  then, 
was  the  regiment  —  a  regiment  already  for  some  hours 
glorified  and  hallowed  to  the  ear  of  all  London,  as 
lying  stretched,  by  a  large  majority,  upon  one  bloody 
sceldama  —  in  which  the  young  trooper  served  whose 
mother  was  now  talking  in  a  spirit  of  such  joyous 
enthusiasm.  Did  I  tell  her  the  truth?  Had  I  the 
^eart  to  break  up  her  dreams  No.  To-morrow,  said 
\  to  myself —  to-morrow,  or  the  next  day,  will  publish 


548 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


the  worst.  For  one  night  more,  wherefore  should  she 
not  sleep  in  peace  ?  After  to-morrow,  the  chances  are 
too  many  that  peace  will  forsake  her  pillow.  This 
brief  respite,  then,  let  her  owe  to  my  gift  and  my  for¬ 
bearance.  But,  if  I  told  her  not  of  the  bloody  pries 
ffiat  had  been  paid,  not,  therefore,  was  I  silent  on  th# 
contributions  from  her  son’s  regiment  to  that  day’s  ser* 
vice  and  glory.  I  showed  her  not  the  funeral  tanners 
under  which  the  noble  regiment  was  sleeping.  I  lifted 
not  the  overshadowing  laurels  from  the  bloody  trench 
in  which  horse  and  rider  lay  mangled  together.  But 
I  told  her  how  these  dear  children  of  England,  officers 
and  privates,  had  leaped  their  horses  over  all  obstacles 
as  gayly  as  hunters  to  the  morning’s  chase.  I  told  her 
how  they  rode  their  horses  into  the  mists  of  death 
(saying  to  myself,  but  not  saying  to  her),  and  laid 
down  their  young  lives  for  thee,  O  mother  England  . 
as  willingly  —  poured  out  their  noble  blood  as  cheer¬ 
fully  —  as  ever,  after  a  long  day’s  sport,  when  infants, 
they  had  rested  their  wearied  heads  upon  their  moth¬ 
er’s  knees,  or  had  sunk  to  sleep  in  her  arms.  Strange 
it  is,  yet  true,  that  she  seemed  to  have  no  fears  for  her 
‘ion’s  safety,  even  after  this  knowledge  that  the  23d 
Dragoons  had  been  memorably  engaged  ;  but  so  much 
was  she  enraptured  by  the  knowledge  that  his  regi¬ 
ment,  and  therefore  that  he ,  had  rendered  conspicuous 
service  in  the  dreadful  conflict  —  a  service  which  had 
actually  made  them,  w  ithin  the  last  twelve  he  urt,  the 
foremost  topic  of  conversation  in  London  —  so  abso¬ 
lutely  was  fear  swallowed  up  in  joy  —  that,  in  the 
mere  simplicity  of  her  fervent  nature,  the  poor  woman 
threw  her  arms  round  my  neck,  as  she  thought  of  hel 
eon,  and  gave  to  me  the  kiss  which  secretly  was  mean 
ffir  him. 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


SECTION  THE  SECOND.  —  THE  VISION  OF  SUDLEN 

DEATH. 

What  is  to  be  taken  as  the  pic  dominant  opinion  ol 
man,  reflective  and  philosophic,  upon  sxjdden  death? 
It  is  remarkable  that,  in  different  conditions  of  society, 
sudden  death  has  been  variously  regarded  as  the  con¬ 
summation  of  an  earthly  career  most  fervently  to  be 
desired,  or,  again,  as  that  consummation  which  is  with 
most  horror  to  be  deprecated.  Caesar  the  Dictator, 
at  his  last  dinner  party  ( cobuci ),  on  the  very  evening 
before  his  assassination,  when  the  minutes  of  his  earth¬ 
ly  career  were  numbered,  being  asked  what  death,  in 
his  judgment,  might  be  pronounced  the  most  eligible, 
replied,  ‘  That  which  should  be  most  sudden.’  On 
the  other  hand,  the  divine  Litany  of  our  English 
Church,  when  breathing  forth  supplications,  as  if  is 
some  representative  character  for  the  whole  human 
race  prostrate  before  God,  places  such  a  death  in  the 
very  van  of  horrors  :  —  ‘  From  lightning  and  tempest; 
from  plague,  pestilence,  and  famine ;  from  battle  and 
murder,  and  from  sudden  death —  Good  Lordy  de - 
*iv?r  vs.'  Sudden  death  is  here  made  to  crown  the 
climax  in  a  grand  ascent  of  calamities ,  i-t  is  ranked 

among  the  last  of  curses;  and  yet,  by  the  noblest  of 

[549J 


550 


THE  ENGIISH  MAT! -COACH. 


Romans,  it  was  ranked  as  the  first  of  blessings.  Is 
that  difference,  most  readers  will  see  little  more  than 
the  essential  difference  between  Christianity  and  Pa¬ 
ganism.  But  this,  on  consideration,  I  doubt.  Th<? 
Christian  Church  may  be  right  in  its  estimate  of  sud- 
den  death ;  and  it  is  a  natural  feeling,  though  after  all 
it  may  also  be  an  infirm  one,  to  wish  for  a  quiet  dis¬ 
missal  from  life  as  that  which  seems  most  reconcil¬ 
able  with  meditation,  with  penitential  retrospects,  and 
with  the  humilities  of  farewell  prayer.  There  does 
not,  however,  occur  to  me  any  direct  scriptural  war¬ 
rant  for  this  earnest  petition  of  the  English  Litany, 
unless  under  a  special  construction  of  the  word  ‘  sud¬ 
den.’  It  seems  a  petition  —  indulged  rather  and  con¬ 
ceded  to  human  infirmity,  than  exacted  from  human 
piety.  It  is  not  so  much  a  doctrine  built  upon  the 
eternities  of  the  Christian  system,  as  a  plausible  opin¬ 
ion  built  upon  special  varieties  of  physical  tempera¬ 
ment.  Let  that,  however,  be  as  it  may,. two  remarks 
suggest  themselves  as  prudent  restraints  upon  a  doc¬ 
trine,  which  else  may  wander,  and  has  wandered,  into 
an  uncharitable  superstition.  The  first  is  this  :  that 
many  people  are  likely  to  exaggerate  the  horror  of  a 
sudden  death,  from  the  disposition  to  lay  a  false  stress 
upon  words  or  acts,  simply  because  by  an  accident 
they  have  become  final  words  or  acts.  If  a  man  dies, 
for  instance,  by  some  sudden  death  when  he  happens 
to  be  intoxicated,  such  a  death  is  falsely  regarded  with 
peculiar  horror  ;  as  though  the  intoxication  were  sud¬ 
denly  exalted  into  a  blasphemy.  But  that  is  unphilo- 
sophic.  The  man  was,  or  he  was  not,  habitually  a 
drunkard  If  not,  if  his  intoxication  were  a  solit&ij 
accident,  there  can  be  no  reason  for  allowing  specie 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


551 


empnasis  to  this  act,  simply  because  through  misfor¬ 
tune  it  became  his  final  act.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
►f  it  were  no  accident,  but  one  of  his  habitual  trans¬ 
gressions,  will  it  be  the  more  habitual  or  the  more  a 
transgression,  because  some  sudden  calamity  surprising 
him,  has  caused  this  habitual  transgression  to  be  also 
a  final  one.  Could  the  man  have  had  any  reason  even 
dimly  to  foresee  his  own  sudden  death,  there  would 
have  been  a  new  feature  in  his  act  of  intemperance  — ~ 
feature  of  presumption  and  irreverence,  as  in  one  that, 
having  known  himself  drawing  near  to  the  presence  of 
God,  should  have  suited  his  demeanor  to  an  expecta¬ 
tion  so  awful.  But  this  is  no  part  of  the  case  sup« 
posed.  And  the  only  new  element  in  the  man’s  act  is 
not  any  element  of  special  immorality,  but  simply  of 
special  misfortune. 

The  other  remark  has  reference  to  the  meaning  of 
the  word  sudden.  Very  possibly  Caesar  and  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  do  not  differ  in  the  way  supposed  ;  that 
is,  do  not  differ  by  any  difference  of  doctrine  as  be¬ 
tween  Pagan  and  Christian  views  of  the  moral  temper 
appropriate  to  death,  but  perhaps  they  are  contem¬ 
plating  different  cases.  Both  contemplate  a  violent 
death,  a  Bia&avaxog  —  death  that  is  Btaiog ,  or,  in  othei 
words,  death  that  is  brought  about,  not  by  internal 
and  spontaneous  change,  but  by  active  force,  having 
its  origin  from  without.  In  this  meaning  the  two 
authorities  agree.  Thus  far  they  are  in  harmony. 
But  the  difference  is,  that  the  Roman  by  the  word 
sudden  ’  means  unlingering;  whereas  the  Christian 
Litany  by  ‘  sudden  deatn  ’  means  a  death  without 
warning,  consequently  without  any  available  summons 
to  religious  preparation.  The  poor  mutineer,  wh« 


552 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-CC  ACH. 


kneels  down  to  gather  into  his  heart  the  bullets  from 
twelve  firelocks  of  his  pitying  comrades,  dies  by  a 
most  sudden  death  in  Cmsar’s  sense  ;  one  shock,  one 
mighty  spasm,  one  (possibly  not  one)  groan,  and  all  is 
over.  But  in  the  sense  of  the  Litany,  the  mutineer’s 
death  is  far  from  sudden  ;  his  offence  originally,  hia 
imprisonment,  his  trial,  the  interval  between  his  sen¬ 
tence  and  its  execution,  having  all  furnished  him  with 
separate  warnings  of  his  fate  —  having  all  summoned 
him  to  meet  it  with  solemn  preparation. 

Here  at  once,  in  this  sharp  verbal  distinction,  we 
comprehend  the  faithful  earnestness  with  which  a  holy 
Christian  Church  pleads  on  behalf  of  her  poor  depart¬ 
ing  children,  that  God  would  vouchsafe  to  them  the 
last  great  privilege  and  distinction  possible  on  a  death* 
bed  —  viz.,  the  opportunity  of  untroubled  preparation 
for  facing  this  mighty  trial.  Sudden  death,  as  a  mere 
variety  in  the  modes  of  dying,  where  death  in  some 
Bhape  is  inevitable,  proposes  a  question  of  choice 
which,  equally  in  the  Roman  and  the  Christian  sensev 
will  be  variously  answered  according  to  each  man’s 
variety  of  temperament.  Meantime,  one  aspect  of 
sudden  death  there  is,  one  modification,  upon  which 
no  doubt  can  arise,  that  of  all  martyrdoms  it  is  the 
most  agitating  —  viz.,  where  it  surprises  a  man  under 
circumstances  which  offer  (or  which  seem  to  offer) 
gome  hurrying,  flying,  inappreciably  minute  chance  of 
evading  it.  Sudden  as  the  danger  which  it  affronts 
must  be  any  effort  by  which  such  an  evasion  can  oa 
kccomplished.  Even  that ,  even  the  sickening  necessi¬ 
ty  for  hurrying  in  extremity  where  all  hurry  seeme 
destined  to  be  vain,  even  thai  anguish  is  liable  to 
hideous  exasperation  in  one  part ie alar  case  —  viz. 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


553 


tfhere  the  appeal  is  made  nc  t  exclusively  to  the  Id* 
Btinct  of  self-preservation,  but  to  the  conscience,  on 
behalf  of  some  other  life  besides  your  own,  accidentally 
thrown  upon  your  protection.  To  fail,  to  collapse  in 
a  service  merely  your  own,  might  seem  comparatively 
venial;  though,  in  fact,  it  is  far  from  venial.  But  to 
fail  in  a  case  where  Providence  has  suddenly  thrown  into 
your  hands  the  final  interests  of  another  —  a  fellcw- 
creature  shuddering  between  the  gates  of  life  and 
death  ;  this,  to  a  man  of  apprehensive  conscience, 
would  mingle  the  misery  of  an  atrocious  criminality 
,vith  the  misery  of  a  bloody  calamity.  You  are  called 
upon,  by  the  case  supposed,  possibly  to  die  ;  but  to  die 
at  the  very  moment  when,  by  any  even  partial  failure, 
or  effeminate  collapse  of  your  energies,  you  will  be 
seif-denounced  as  a  murderer.  You  had  but  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  for  your  effort,  and  that  effort 
might  have  been  unavailing ;  but  to  have  risen  to  the 
level  of  such  an  effort,  would  have  rescued  you, 
though  not  from  dying,  yet  from  dying  as  a  traitor 
,o  your  final  and  farewell  duty. 

The  situation  here  contemplated  exposes  a  dreadful 
ulcer,  lurking  far  down  in  the  depths  of  human  nature. 
It  is  not  that  men  generally  are  summoned  to  face 
such  awful  trials.  But  potentially,  and  in  shadowy 
outline,  such  a  trial  is  moving  subterraneouslv  in  per- 
*.aps  all  men’s  natures.  Upon  the  secret  mirror  of 
our  dreams  such  a  trial  is  darkly  projected,  perhaps, 
to  every  one  of  us.  That  dream,  so  familiar  to  child¬ 
hood,  of  meeting  a  lion,  and,  through  languishing 
prostration  in  hope  and  the  energies  of  hope,  that 
sonstant  sequel  of  lying  down  before  the  lion,  pub¬ 
lishes  the  secret  frailty  of  human  nature  —  reveals  it# 


554  THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 

deep-seated  falsehood  to  itself — records  its  abysmal 
treachery.  Perhaps  not  one  of  us  escapes  that  dream ; 
perhaps,  as  by  some  sorrowful  doom  of  man,  tnal 
dream  repeats  for  every  one  of  us,  through  every 
generation,  the  original  temptation  in  Eden.  Every 
one  of  us,  in  this  dream,  has  a  bait  offered  to  the 
infirm  places  of  his  own  individual  will ;  once  again 
a  snare  is  presented  for  tempting  him  into  captivity  to 
a  luxury  of  ruin  ;  once  again,  as  in  aboriginal  Para¬ 
dise,  the  man  falls  by  his  own  choice ;  again,  by 
infinite  iteration,  the  ancient  Earth  groans  to  Pleaven, 
through  her  secret  caves,  over  the  weakness  of  her 
child :  ‘  Nature,  from  her  seat,  sighing  through  all  her 
works,’  again  ‘  gives  signs  of  wo  that  all  is  lost ;  ’  and 
again  the  counter  sigh  is  repeated  to  the  sorrowing 
heavens  for  the  endless  rebellion  against  God.  It  is 
not  without  probability  that  in  the  world  of  dreams 
every  one  of  us  ratifies  for  himself  the  original  trans¬ 
gression.  In  dreams,  perhaps  under  some  secret 
conflict  of  the  midnight  sleeper,  lighted  up  to  the 
consciousness  at  the  time,  but  darkened  to  the  mem¬ 
ory  as  soon  as  all  is  finished,  each  several  child  of  our 
mysterious  race  completes  for  himself  the  treason  of 
the  aboriginal  fall. 


The  incident,  so  memorable  in  itself  by  its  features 
of  horror,  and  so  scenical  by  its  grouping  for  the  eye, 
which  furnished  the  text  for  this  reverie  upon  Sudden 
Death ,  occurred  to  myself  in  the  dead  of  night,  as  a 
nlitary  spectator,  when  seated  on  the  box  of  the 
Manchester  and  Glasgow  mail,  in  the  second  or  third 
summer  after  Waterloo.  I  find  it  necessary  to  relate 
Tie  circumstances,  because  they  are  such  as  could  no 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


555 


nave  occurred  unless  under  a  singular  combination  of 
accidents.  In  those  days,  the  oblique  and  lateral 
eommunications  with  many  rural  post-offices  were  sc 
arranged,  either  through  necessity  or  through  defect 
of  system,  as  to  make  it  requisite  for  the  main  north¬ 
western  mail  (i.  e.,  the  down  mail),  on  reaching  Man¬ 
chester,  to  halt  for  a  number  of  hours  ;  how  many,  I 
do  not  remember ;  six  or  seven,  I  think ;  but  the 
result  was,  that,  in  the  ordinary  course,  the  mail 
recommenced  its  journey  northwards  aboffi  midnight. 
Wearied  with  the  long  detention  at  a  gloomy  notel, 
I  walked  out  about  eleven  o’clock  at  night  for  tne 
sake  of  fresh  air ;  meaning  to  fall  in  with  the  mail 
and  resume  my  seat  at  the  post-office.  The  night, 
however,  being  yet  dark,  as  the  moon  had  scarcely 
risen,  and  the  streets  being  at  that  hour  empty,  so  as  to 
offer  no  opportunities  for  asking  the  road,  I  lost  my 
way  ;  and  did  not  reach  the  post-office  until  it  was  con¬ 
siderably  past  midnight ;  but,  to  my  great  relief  (as  it 
was  important  for  me  to  be  in  Westmoreland  by  the 
morning),  I  saw  in  the  huge  saucer  eyes  of  the  mail, 
blazing  through  the  gloom,  an  evideuce  that  my 
chance  was  not  yet  lost.  Past  the  time  it  was,  but, 
by  some  rare  accident,  the  mail  was  not  even  yet 
ready  to  start.  I  ascended  to  my  seat  on  the  box, 
where  my  cloak  was  still  lying  as  it  had  lain  at  the 
Bridgewater  Arms.  I  had  left  it  there  in  imitation 
cf  a  nautical  discoverer,  who  leaves  a  bit  of  bunting 
on  the  shore  of  his  discovery,  by  way  of  warning  off 
the  ground  the  whole  human  race,  and  notifying  to 
die  Christian  and  the  heathen  worlds,  with  his  best 
iompliments,  that  he  has  hoisted  his  pocket-handker* 
rJbief  once  and  for  ever  upon  that  virgin  soil ;  thence* 


556 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


forward  claiming  the  jus  dominii  to  the  top  of  the 
atmosphere  above  it,  and  also  the  right  of  driving 
shafts  to  the  centre  of  the  earth  below  it ;  so  that  all 
people  found  after  this  warning,  either  aloft  in  uppei 
chambers  of  the  atmosphere,  or  groping  in  subterrane¬ 
ous  shafts,  or  squatting  audaciously  on  the  surface  of 
the  soil,  will  be  treated  as  trespassers  —  kicked,  that  is 
to  say,  or  decapitated,  as  circumstances  may  suggest,  by 
their  very  faithful  servant,  the  owner  of  the  said  pocket- 
handkerchief.  In  <he  present  case,  it  is  probable  that 
my  cloak  might  noi  have  been  respected,  and  the  jus 
gentium  might  have  been  cruelly  violated  in  my  person 
* —  for,  in  the  dark,  people  commit  deeds  of  darkness, 
gas  being  a  great  ally  of  morality — but  it  so  hap¬ 
pened  that,  on  this  night,  there  was  no  other  outside 
passenger ;  and  thus  the  crime,  which  else  was  but  toe 
probable,  missed  fire  for  want  of  a  criminal. 

Having  mounted  the  box,  I  took  a  small  quantity  o  1 
laudanum,  having  already  travelled  two  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  —  viz.,  from  a  point  seventy  miles  beyond 
London.  In  the  taking  of  laudanum  there  was  nothing 
extraordinary.  But  by  accident  it  drew  upon  me  the 
special  attention  of  my  assessor  on  the  box,  the  coach¬ 
man.  And  in  that  also  there  was  nothing  extraordi¬ 
nary.  But  by  accident,  and  with  great  delight,  it 
drew  my  own  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  coachman 
was  a  monster  in  point  of  bulk,  and  that  he  had  but 
&ne  eye.  In  fact,  he  had  been  foretold  by  Virgil  as 

1  Mons+ram  horrendum,  informe,  ingens  cui  lumen  ademptum.* 

He  answered  to  the  conditions  in  every  one  of  the 
rtems :  —  1,  a  monster  he  was  ;  2,  dreadful ;  3,  shape- 
•eea ;  4,  huge ;  5,  who  had  lost  an  e  ve.  But  why 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


557 


IKould  that  delight  me  ?  Had  he  been  one  of  thi 
Calendars  in  the  ‘Arabian  Nights,’  and  had  paid 
down  his  eye  as  the  price  of  his  criminal  curiosity, 
what  right  had  I  to  exult  in  his  misfortune  ?  I  did 
not  exult :  I  delighted  in  no  man’s  punishment,  though 
it  were  even  merited.  But  these  personal  distinctions 
(Nos.  1,  2,  3,  4,  5)  identified  in  an  instant  an  r;ld 
friend  of  mine,  whom  I  had  known  in  the  south  for 
some  years  as  the  most  masterly  of  mail-coachmen. 
He  was  the  man  in  all  Europe  that  could  (if  any 
could)  have  driven  six-in-hand  full  gallop  over  Al 
Sirat  —  that  dreadful  bridge  of  Mahomet,  with  no 
side  battlements,  and  of  extra  room  not  enough  for  a 
razor’s  edge  —  leading  right  across  the  bottomless 
gulf.  Under  this  eminent  man,  whom  in  Greek  I 
cognominated  Cyclops  diphrelates  (Cyclops  the  cha¬ 
rioteer),  I,  and  others  known  to  me,  studied  the 
diphrelatic  art.  Excuse,  reader,  a  word  too  elegant 
to  be  pedantic.  As  a  pupil,  though  I  paid  extra  fees, 
it  is  to  be  lamented  that  I  did  not  stand  high  in  his 
esteem.  It  showed  his  dogged  honesty  (though,  ob¬ 
serve,  not  his  discernment),  that  he  could  not  see  my 
merits.  Let  us  excuse  his  absurdity  in  this  particular, 
by  remembering  his  want  of  an  eye.  Doubtless  that 
made  him  blind  to  my  merits.  In  the  art  of  conversa¬ 
tion,  however,  he  admitted  that  I  had  the  whip-hand 
Df  him.  On  this  present  occasion,  great  joy  was  al 
&u;  meeting.  But  what  was  Cyclops  doing  here  ? 
Had  the  medical  men  recommended  northern  air,  or 
how?  I  collected,  from  such  explanations  as  he  vol- 
antoered,  that  he  had  an  interest  at  stake  in  some  suit< 
%ldaw  nowr  pending  at  Lancaster ;  so  that  probably  h* 
«ad  got  himself  transferred  to  this  station,  for  the  pur 


553 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


pose  of  connecting  with  his  professional  pursuits  ai 
instant  readiness  for  the  calls  of  his  lawsuit. 

Meantime,  what  are  we  stopping  for?  Surely  we 
have  now  waited  long  enough.  Oh,  this  procrastina¬ 
ting  mail,  and  this  procrastinating  post-office!  Can’t 
they  take  a  lesson  upon  that  subject  from  me  ?  Some 
people  have  called  me  procrastinating.  Yet  you  are 
witness,  reader,  that  I  was  kept  here  waiting  for  the 
post-office.  Will  the  post-office  lay  its  hand  on  its 
heart,  in  its  moments  of  sobriety,  and  assert  that  ever 
it  waited  for  me  ?  What  are  they  about  ?  The  guard 
tells  me  that  there  is  a  large  extra  accumulation  of 
foreign  mails  this  night,  owing  to  irregularities  caused 
by  war,  by  wind,  by  weather,  in  the  packet  service, 
which  as  yet  does  not  benefit  at  all  by  steam.  For  an 
extra  hour,  it  seems,  the  post-office  has  been  engaged 
in  threshing  out  the  pure  wheaten  correspondence  of 
Glasgow,  and  winnowing  it  from  the  chaff  of  all  baser 
intermediate  towns.  But  at  last  all  is  finished.  Sound 
your  horn,  guard.  Manchester,  good-by ;  we’ve  lost 
an  hour  by  your  criminal  conduct  at  the  post-office : 
tyhich,  however,  though  I  do  not  mean  to  part  with  a 
serviceable  ground  of  complaint,  and  one  which  really 
is  such  for  the  horses,  to  me  secretly  is  an  advantage, 
since  it  compels  us  to  look  sharply  for  this  lost  hour 
amongst  the  next  eight  or  nine,  and  to  recover  it  (if 
ve  can)  at  the  rate  of  one  mile  extra  per  hour.  Off 
we  are  at  last,  and  at  eleven  miles  per  hour :  and  for 
the  moment  I  detect  no  changes  in  the  energy  or  in 
She  skill  of  Cyclops. 

From  Manchester  to  Kendal,  which  virtually  (though 
not  in  law)  is  the  capital  of  Westmoreland,  there  wero 
it  dus  time  seven  stages  of  eleven  nbles  each.  Tha 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


559 


first  five  of  these,  counting  from  Manchester,  terminate 
in  Lancaster,  which  is  therefore  fifty-five  miles  north 
of  Manchester,  and  the  same  distance  exactly  from 
Liverpool.  The  first  three  stages  terminate  in  Preston 
(called,  by  way  of  distinction  from  other  towns  of  that 
name,  proud  Preston),  at  which  place  it  is  that  the 
separate  roads  from  Liverpool  and  from  Manchester  to 
the  north  become  confluent. 76  Within  these  first  three 
gtages  lay  the  foundation,  the  progress,  and  terrains-' 
tion  of  our  night’s  adventure.  During  the  first  stage, 
I  found  out  that  Cyclops  was  mortal :  he  was  liable  to 
the  shocking  affection  of  sleep  —  a  thing  which  pre¬ 
viously  I  had  never  suspected.  If  a  man  indulges  in 
the  vicious  habit  of  sleeping,  all  the  skill  in  aurigation 
of  Apollo  himself,  with  the  horses  of  Aurora  to  exe¬ 
cute  his  notions,  avail  him  nothing.  4  Oh,  Cyclops  !  * 
I  exclaimed,  ‘  thou  art  mortal.  My  friend,  thou  snor- 
est.’  Through  the  first  eleven  miles,  however,  this 
infirmity  —  which  I  grieve  to  say  that  he  shared  with 
the  whole  Pagan  Pantheon  —  betrayed  itself  only  by 
brief  snatches.  On  waking  up,  he  made  an  apology 
for  himself,  which,  instead  of  mending  matters,  laid 
^  >pen  a  gloomy  vista  of  coming  disasters.  The  sum¬ 
mer  assizes,  he  reminded  me,  were  now  going  on  at 
Lancaster :  in  consequence  of  which,  for  three  nights 
uid  three  days,  he  had  not  lain  down  in  a  bed.  Dur- 
ng  the  day,  he  was  waiting  for  his  own  summons  as  a 
witness  on  the  trial  in  which  he  was  interested :  ot 
rflse,  lest  he  should  be  missing  at  the  critical  moment, 
was  drinking  with  the  other  witnesses,  under  the  pas- 
lorsi  surveillance  of  the  attorneys.  During  the  night, 
•»r  that  part  of  it  which  at  sea  would  form  the  middle 
rateh,  he  was  driving.  This  explanation  certainly 


m 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACE. 


accounted  for  his  drowsiness,  but  in  a  way  which  mads 
it  much  more  alarming ;  since  now,  after  several  clays 
resistance  to  this  infirmity,  at  length  he  was  steadily 
giving  way.  Throughout  the  second  stage  he  grew 
more  and  more  drowsy.  In  the  second  mile  of  the 
third  stage,  he  surrendered  himself  finally  and  without 
a  struggle  to  his  perilous  temptation.  All  his  past 
resistance  had  but  deepened  the  weight  of  this  final 
oppression.  Seven  atmospheres  of  sleep  rested  upon 
him ;  and  to  consummate  the  case,  our  worthy  guard, 
after  singing  ‘  Love  amongst  the  Roses  ’  for  perhaps 
thirty  times,  without  invitation,  and  without  applause, 
had  in  revenge  moodily  resigned  himself  to  slumber  — 
not  so  deep,  doubtless,  as  the  coachman’s,  but  deep 
enough  for  mischief.  And  thus  at  last,  about  ten 
miles  from  Preston,  it  came  about  that  I  found  myself 
’eft  in  charge  of  his  Majesty’s  London  and  Glasgow 
mail,  then  running  at  the  least  twelve  miles  an  hour. 

What  made  this  negligence  less  criminal  than  else  it 
must  have  been  thought,  was  the  condition  of  the 
roads  at  night  during  the  assizes.  At  that  time,  all 
the  law  business  of  populous  Liverpool,  and  also  of 
populous  Manchester,  with  its  vast  cincture  of  popu¬ 
lous  rural  districts,  was  called  up  by  ancient  usage  to 
the  tribunal  of  Lilliputian  Lancaster.  To  break  up 
this  old  traditional  usage  required,  1,  a  conflict  with 
powerful  established  interests;  2,  a  large  system  of 
new  arrangements  ;  and  3,  a  new  parliamentary  statute. 
But  as  yet  this  change  was  merely  in  contemplation. 
M  things  were  at  present,  twice  in  the  year77  so  vast 
i  body  of  business  rolled  northwards,  from  the  south¬ 
ern  quarter  of  the  county,  that  for  a  fortnight  at  least 
occupied  the  severe  exertions  of  two  judges  in  ltl 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


561 


iespatch.  The  consequence  of  this  was,  that  every 
horse  available  for  such  a  service,  along  the  whole  line 
of  road,  was  exhausted  in  carrying  down  the  multitudes 
of  people  who  were  parties  to  the  different  suits.  By 
sunset,  therefore,  it  usually  happened  that,  through 
utter  exhaustion  amongst  men  and  horses,  the  road.fi 
sank  into  profound  silence.  Except  the  exhaustion  in 
the  vast  adjacent  county  of  York  from  a  contested 
election,  no  such  silence  succeeding  to  no  such  fierv 
uproar  was  ever  witnessed  in  England. 

On  this  occasion,  the  usual  silence  and  solitude  pre¬ 
vailed  along  the  road.  Not  a  hoof  nor  a  wheel  was  to 
be  heard.  And  to  strengthen  this  false  luxurious  con¬ 
fidence  in  the  noiseless  roads,  it  happened  also  that 
the  night  was  one  of  peculiar  solemnity  and  peace. 
For  my  own  part,  though  slightly  alive  to  the  possibil¬ 
ities  of  peril,  I  had  so  far  yielded  to  the  influence  of 
the  mighty  calm  as  to  sink  into  a  profound  reverie. 
The  month  was  August,  in  the  middle  of  which  lay 
my  own  birth-day  —  a  festival  to  every  thoughtful  man 
suggesting  solemn  and  often  sigh-born78  thoughts. 
The  county  was  my  own  native  county  —  upon  which, 
in  its  southern  section,  more  than  upon  any  equal  area 
known  to  man  past  or  present,  had  descended  the 
original  curse  of  labor  in  its  heaviest  form,  not  master¬ 
ing  the  bodies  only  of  men  as  of  slaves,  or  criminals  in 
mines,  but  working  through  the  fiery  will.  Upon  no 
equal  space  of  earth  was,  or  ever  had  been,  the  same 
energy  of  human  power  put  forth  daily.  At  this  par¬ 
ticular  season  also  of  the  assizes,  that  dreadful  hurri- 
tane  of  flight  and  pursuit,  as  it  might  have  seemed  to 
%  stranger,  which  swept  t3  and  'irom  Lancaster  all  day 
long,  hunting  the  county  up  and  down,  and  regularly 


£62  THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 

Bubsiding  back  into  silence  about  sunset,  could  not  f&2 
(when  united  with  this  permanent  distinction  of  Lan¬ 
cashire  as  the  very  metropolis  and  citidal  of  labor)  to 
point  the  thoughts  pathetically  upon  that  counter  vis¬ 
ion  of  rest,  of  saintly  repose  from  strife  and  sorrow, 
towards  which,  as  to  their  secret  haven,  the  profoundei 
aspirations  of  man’s  heart  are  in  solitude  continually 
travelling.  Obliquely  upon  our  left  we  were  nearing 
the  sea,  which  also  must,  under  the  present  circum¬ 
stances,  be  repeating  the  general  state  of  halcyon 
repose.  The  sea,  the  atmosphere,  the  light,  bore  each 
an  orchestral  part  in  this  universal  lull.  Moonlight, 
and  the  first  timid  tremblings  of  the  dawn,  were  by 
this  time  blending ;  and  the  blendings  were  brought 
into  a  still  more  exquisite  state  of  unity  by  a  slight 
silvery  mist,  motionless  and  dreamy,  that  covered  the 
woods  and  fields,  but  with  a  veil  of  equable  transpa¬ 
rency.  Except  the  feet  of  our  own  horses,  which, 
running  on  a  sandy  margin  of  the  road,  made  but  little 
disturbance,  there  was  no  sound  abroad.  In  the 
clouds,  and  on  the  earth,  prevailed  the  same  majestic 
peace ;  and  in  spite  of  all  that  the  villain  of  a  school¬ 
master  has  done  for  the  ruin  of  our  sublimer  thoughts, 
which  are  the  thoughts  of  our  infancy,  we  still  believe 
.n  no  such  nonsense  as  a  limited  atmosphere.  What¬ 
ever  we  may  swear  with  our  false  feigning  lips,  in  oui 
faithful  hearts  we  still  believe,  and  must  for  ever  be¬ 
lieve,  in  fields  of  air  traversing  the  total  gulf  between 
«$arth  and  the  central  heavens.  Still  in  the  confidence 
wf  children  that  tread  without  fear  every  chamber  in 
oheir  father’s  house,  and  to  whom  no  door  is  closed, 
we,  in  that  Sabbatic  vision  which  sometimes  is  revealed 
ipr  a  a  hour  upon  nights  like  this,  ascend  with  easy 


THE  TISTOix  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH.  5(>3 

iteps  from  the  sorrow-stricken  fields  of  earth,  upwards 
to  the  sandals  of  God. 

Suddenly,  from  thoughts  like  these,  I  was  awakened 
to  a  sullen  sound,  as  of  some  motion  on  the  distant 
road.  It  stole  upon  the  air  for  a  moment ;  I  listened 
in  awe  ;  but  then  it  died  away.  Once  roused,  hovr« 
ever,  I  could  not  but  observe  with  alarm  the  quickened 
motion  of  our  horses.  Ten  years’  experience  had 
made  my  eye  learned  in  the  valuing  of  motion  ;  and  I 
gaw  that  we  were  now  running  thirteen  miles  an  hour. 
I  pretend  to  no  presence  of  mind.  On  the  contrary,, 
my  fear  is,  that  I  am  miserably  and  shamefully  de¬ 
ficient  in  that  quality  as  regards  action.  The  palsy 
of  doubt  and  distraction  hangs  like  some  guilty  weight 
of  dark  unfathomed  remembrances  upon  my  energies, 
when  the  signal  is  flying  for  action.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  this  accursed  gift  I  have,  as  regards  thought, 
that  in  the  first  step  towards  the  possibility  of  a  mis¬ 
fortune,  I  see  its  total  evolution  ;  in  the  radix  of  the 
series  I  see  too  certainly  and  too  instantly  its  entire 
expansion;  in  the  first  syllable  of  the  dreadful  sen¬ 
tence,  I  read  already  the  last.  It  was  not  that  I  feared 
for  ourselves.  Us,  our  bulk  and  impetus  charmed 
against  peril  in  any  collision.  And  I  had  ridden 
through  too  many  hundreds  of  perils  that  were  fright¬ 
ful  to  approach,  that  were  matter  of  laughter  to  look 
back  upon,  the  first  face  of  which  was  horror  —  the 
oarting  face  a  jest,  for  any  anxiety  to  rest  upon  our 
interests.  The  mail  was  not  built,  I  felt  assured,  noi 
bespoke,  that  could  betray  me  who  trusted  to  its  pro¬ 
tection.  But  any  carriage  that  we  could  meet  would 
frail  and  light  in  comparison  of  ourselves.  And 
*  reraaik  this  ominous  accident  of  our  situation  W* 


564 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


were  in  the  wrong  side  of  the  road.  But  then,  it  m&j 
be  said,  the  other  party,  if  other  there  was,  might  also 
be  on  the  wrong  side  ;  and  two  wrongs  might  make  g 
right.  That  was  not  likely.  The  same  motive  wLAh 
had  drawn  us  to  the  right-hand  side  of  the  :  oad 
viz.,  the  luxury  of  the  soft  beaten  sand,  as  contrasted 
with  the  paved  centre  —  would  prove  attractive  to 
others.  The  two  adverse  carriages  would  therefore,  to 
&  certainty,  be  travelling  on  the  same  side  ;  and  from 
this  side,  as  not  being  ours  in  law,  the  crossing  over  to 
the  other  would,  of  course,  be  looked  for  from  us ,79 
Our  lamps,  still  lighted,  would  give  the  impression  of 
vigilance  on  our  part.  And  every  creature  that  met 
us,  would  rely  upon  us  for  quartering.80  All  this,  and 
if  the  separate  links  of  the  anticipation  had  been  a 
thousand  times  more,  I  saw,  not  discursively,  or  by 
effort,  or  by  succession,  but  by  one  flash  of  horrid 
simultaneous  intuition. 

Under  this  steady  though  rapid  anticipation  of  the 
evil  which  might  be  gathering  ahead,  ah  !  what  a  sul¬ 
len  mystery  of  fear,  what  a  sigh  of  wo,  was  that  which 
stole  upon  the  air,  as  again  the  far-off  sound  of  a  wheel 
was  heard  ?  A  whisper  it  was  —  a  whisper  from, 
perhaps,  four  miles  off — secretly  announcing  a  ruin 
that,  being  foreseen,  was  not  the  less  inevitable  ;  that, 
being  known,  was  not,  therefore,  healed.  What  could 
i'e  done  —  who  was  it  that  could  do  it —  to  check  the 
storm-flight  of  these  maniacal  horses  ?  Could  I  not 
seize  the  reins  from  the  grasp  of  the  slumbering  coach¬ 
man  ?  You,  reader,  think  that  it  would  have  been  in 
vour  power  to  do  so.  And  I  quarrel  not  with  youi 
estimate  of  yourself.  But,  from  the  way  in  which  thi 
loachman’s  hand  was  viced  between  his  upper  anfl 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


565 


lower  thigh,  this  was  impossible.  Easy,  was  it  ?  See. 
then,  that  bronze  equestrian  statue.  The  cruel  ride* 
has  kept  the  bit  in  his  horse’s  mouth  for  two  centu* 
ries.  Unbridle  him,  for  a  minute,  if  you  please,  and 
wash  his  mouth  with  water.  Easy,  was  it  ?  Unhorse 
me,  then,  that  imperial  rider  ;  knock  me  those  marble 
feet  from  those  marble  stirrups  of  Chariemagne. 

The  sounds  ahead  strengthened,  and  were  now  too 
clearly  the  sounds  of  wheels.  Who  and  what  could 
it  be  ?  Was  it  industry  in  a  taxed  cart  ?  Was  if 
youthful  gayety  in  a  gig  ?  Was  it  sorrow  that  loiter¬ 
ed,  or  joy  that  raced?  For  as  yet  the  snatches  of 
sound  were  too  intermitting,  from  distance,  to  decipher 
the  character  of  the  motion.  Whoever  were  the 
travellers,  something  must  be  done  to  warn  them. 
Upon  the  other  party  rests  the  active  responsibility, 
but  upon  us  —  and,  wo  is  me  !  that  us  was  reduced  to 
my  frail  opium-shattered  self  —  rests  the  responsibility 
of  warning.  Yet  how  should  this  be  accomplished  ? 
Might  I  not  sound  the  guard’s  horn?  Already,  on 
the  first  thought,  I  wras  making  my  way  over  the  roof 
\o  the  guard’s  seat.  But  this,  from  the  accident  wdiich 
l  have  mentioned,  of  the  foreign  mails’  being  piled 
upon  the  roof,  vras  a  difficult  and  even  dangerous  at¬ 
tempt  to  one  cramped  by  nearly  three  hundred  milea 
of  outside  travelling.  And,  fortunately,  before  I  had 
.ost  much  time  in  the  attempt,  our  frantic  horses  swept 
“ound  an  angle  of  the  road,  wdiich  opened  upon  us 
that  final  stage  where  the  collision  must  be  accom¬ 
plished,  and  the  catastrophe  sealed.  All  was  appar- 
r-iitly  finished.  The  court  was  sitting;  vhe  case  waa 
leard;  the  judge  had  finis/ied;  and  the  only  verdicl 
was  yet  in  arrear. 


566 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


Before  us  lay  an  avenue,  straight  as  an  arrow,  eu 
hundred  yards,  perhaps,  in  length  ;  and  the  umbrageouf 
trees,  which  rose  in  a  regular  line  from  either  side 
meeting  h:gh  overhead,  gave  to  it  the  character  of  a 
cathedral  aisle.  These  trees  lent  a  deeper  solemnity 
to  the  early  light ;  but  there  was  still  light  enough  to 
perceive,  at  the  further  end  of  this  Gothic  aisle,  a  frail 
reedy  gig,  in  which  were  seated  a  young  man,  and  by 
his  side  a  young  lady.  Ah,  young  sir  !  what  are  yon 
about  ?  If  it  is  requisite  that  you  should  whisper  your 
communications  to  this  young  lady  —  though  really  I 
see  nobody,  at  an  hour  and  on  a  road  so  solitary,  likely 
to  overhear  you  —  is  it  therefore  requisite  that  yoq 
should  carry  your  lips  forward  to  hers  ?  The  little 
carriage  is  creeping  on  at  one  mile  an  hour ;  and  the 
parties  within  it  being  thus  tenderly  engaged,  are 
naturally  bending  down  their  heads.  Between  them 
and  eternity,  to  all  human  calculation,  there  is  but  a 
minute  and  a-half.  Oh  heavens !  what  is  it  that  I 
shall  do  ?  Speaking  or  acting,  what  help  can  I  offer  ? 
Strange  it  is,  and  to  a  mere  auditor  of  the  tale  might 
seem  laughable,  that  I  should  need  a  suggestion  from 
the  ‘  Iliad  ’  to  prompt  the  sole  resource  that  remained. 
Yet  so  it  was.  Suddenly  I  remembered  the  shout  of 
Achilles,  and  its  effect.  But  could  I  pretend  to  shout 
like  the  son  of  Peleus,  aided  by  Pallas  ?  No  :  but 
then  1  needed  not  the  shout  that  should  alarm  all  Asia 
militant ;  such  a  shout  would  suffice  as  might  carry 
terror  into  the  hearts  of  two  thoughtless  young  peo¬ 
ple,  and  one  gig  horse.  I  shouted  —  and  the  young 
man  heard  me  not.  A  second  time  I  shouted — ara 
iow  he  heard  me,  for  now  he  raised  his  head. 

Here,  then,  all  had  been  done  that,  by  me,  could.  M 


THE  VISION  OE  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


£>67 


lone  :  more  on  my  part  was  not  possible.  Mine  h&d 
been  the  first  step  ;  the  second  was  for  the  young 
man  ;  the  third  was  for  God.  If,  said  I,  this  stranger 
is  a  brave  man,  and  if,  indeed,  he  loves  the  young  girl 
at  his  side  —  or,  loving  her  not,  if  he  feels  the  obligu- 
don,  pressing  upon  every  man  worthy  to  be  called  a 
man,  of  doing  his  utmost  for  a  woman  confided  to  Ids 
protection  —  he  will,  at  least,  make  some  effort  to 
save  her.  If  that  fails,  he  will  not  perish  the  more,  ot 
by  a  death  more  cruel,  for  having  made  it ;  and  he  will 
die  as  a  brave  man  should,  with  his  face  to  the  dan¬ 
ger,  and  with  his  arm  about  the  woman  that  he  sought 
in  vain  to  save.  But,  if  he  makes  no  effort,  shrinking, 
without  a  struggle,  from  his  duty,  he  himself  will  not 
the  less  certainly  perish  for  this  baseness  of  poltroon¬ 
ery.  He  will  die  no  less  :  and  why  not  ?  Wherefore 
should  we  grieve  that  there  is  one  craven  less  in  the 
world?  No  ;  let  him  perish,  without  a  pitying  thought 
of  ours  wasted  upon  him ;  and,  in  that  case,  all  on* 
grief  will  be  reserved  for  the  fate  of  the  helpless  gild 
who  now,  upom  the  least  shadow  of  failure  in  him , 
must,  by  the  fiercest  of  translations  —  must,  without 
time  for  a  prayer  —  must,  within  seventy  seconds, 
stand  before  the  judgment-seat  of  God. 

But  craven  he  was  not :  sudden  had  been  the  ca.il 
upon  him,  and  sudden  was  his  answer  to  the  call. 
He  saw,  he  heard,  he  comprehended,  the  ruin  that 
was  coming  down :  already  its  gloomy  shadow  dark¬ 
ened  above  him  ;  and  already  he  was  measuring  his 
ittrength  to  deal  with  it.  Ah  .  whao  a  vulgar  thing 
does  courage  seem,  when  we  see  nations  buying  it  and 
telling  it  for  a  shilling  a-day :  ah !  what  a  sublime 
diing  dees  courage  seem,  when  some  fearful  sumnori 


568 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


on  the  great  deeps  of  life  carries  a  man,  as  if  runnin| 
before  a  hurricane,  up  to  the  giddy  crest  of  some 
tumultuous  crisis,  from  which  lie  two  courses,  and  a 
voice  says  to  him  audibly,  ‘  One  way  lies  hope  ;  tak« 
the  other,  and  mourn  for  ever !  ’  How  grand  a 
triumph,  if,  even  then,  amidst  the  raving  of  all  around 
him,  and  the  frenzy  of  the  danger,  the  man  is  able 
to  confront  his  situation  —  is  able  to  retire  for  a 
moment  into  solitude  with  God,  and  to  seek  his 
counsel  from  him  ! 

For  seven  seconds,  it  might  be,  of  his  seventy,  the 
stranger  settled  his  countenance  steadfastly  upon  us, 
as  if  to  search  and  value  every  element  in  the  conflict 
before  him.  For  five  seconds  more  of  his  seventy  he 
Bat  immovably,  like  one  that  mused  on  some  great 
purpose.  For  five  more,  perhaps,  he  sat  with  eyes 
upraised,  like  one  that  prayed  in  sorrow,  under  some 
extremity  of  doubt,  for  light  that  should  guide  him  to 
the  better  choice.  Then  suddenly  he  rose ;  stood 
upright ;  and  by  a  powerful  strain  upon  the  reins, 
raising  his  horse’s  fore-feet  from  the  ground,  he 
slewed  him  round  on  the  pivot  of  his  hind-legs,  so 
as  to  plant  the  little  equipage  in  a  position  nearly  at 
right  angles  to  ours.  Thus  far  his  condition  was  not 
improved,  except  as  a  first  step  had  been  taken  to¬ 
wards  the  possibility  of  a  second.  If  no  more  were 
done,  nothing  was  done ;  for  the  little  carriage  still 
occupied  the  very  centre  of  our  path,  though  in  an 
altered  direction.  Yet  even  now  it  may  not  t>e  too 
late :  fifteen  of  the  seventy  seconds  may  still  be  unex¬ 
hausted;  and  one  almighty  bound  may  avail  to  clear 
me  ground.  Hurry,  then,  hurry  !  for  the  flying  mo- 
Rientf  —  they  hurry!  Oh,  hurry,  hurry,  my  bravt 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH.  569 

young  man!  for  the  cruel  hoofs  of  our  horses — they 
also  hurry  !  Fast  are  the  flying  moments,  faster  are  the 
hoofs  of  our  horses.  But  fear  not  for  him,  if  human 
energy  can  sufflce  ;  faithful  was  he  that  drove  to  b.Ls 
terrific  duty  ;  faithful  was  the  horse  to  his  command. 
One  blow,  one  impulse  given  with  voice  and  hand, 
by  the  stranger,  one  rush  from  the  horse,  one  bound 
as  if  in  the  act  of  rising  to  a  fence,  landed  the  docile 
creature’s  fore-feet  upon  the  crown  or  arching  centre 
of  the  road.  The  larger  half  of  the  little  equipage 
had  then  cleared  our  overtowering  shadow :  that  was 
evident  even  to  my  own  agitated  sight.  But  it  mat¬ 
tered  little  that  one  wreck  should  float  off  in  safety, 
if  upon  the  wreck  that  perished  were  embarked  the 
human  freightage.  The  rear  part  of  the  carriage  — 
was  that  certainly  beyond  the  line  of  absolute  ruin  ? 
What  power  could  answer  the  question  ?  Glance  of 
eye,  thought  of  man,  wing  of  angel,  which  of  these 
had  speed  enough  to  sweep  between  the  question  and 
the  answer,  and  divide  the  one  from  the  other  ? 
Light  does  not  tread  upon  the  steps  of  light  more 
indivisibly,  than  did  our  all-conquering  arrival  upon 
the  escaping  efforts  of  the  gig.  That  must  the  young 
man  have  felt  too  plainly.  His  back  was  now  turned 
to  us ;  not  by  sight  could  he  any  longer  communicate 
with  the  peril ;  but  by  the  dreadful  rattle  of  our 
harness,  too  truly  had  his  ear  been  instructed  —  that 
all  was  finished  as  regained  any  further  effort  of  his. 
Already  in  resignation  he  had  rested  from  his  struggle  ; 
Mid  perhaps  in  his  heart  he  was  whispering,  ‘  Father, 
which  art  in  heaven,  do  thou  finish  above  what  I  on 
•arth  have  attempted.’  Faster  than  ever  mill-race  we 
tan  past  them  in  our  inexorable  flight.  Oh,  raving  of 


570 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


hurricanes  that  must  have  sounded  in  their  young  ears 
at  the  moment  of  our  transit !  Even  in  that  momenl 
the  thunder  ef  collision  spoke  aloud.  Either  with  the 
swingle-bar,  or  with  the  haunch  of  our  near  leader,  we 
had  struck  the  off-wheel  of  the  little  gig,  which  stood 
rather  obliquely,  and  not  quite  so  far  advanced,  as  to 
be  accurately  parallel  with  the  near-wheel.  The  blow, 
from  the  fury  of  our  passage,  resounded  terrifically. 
I  rose  in  horror,  to  gaze  upon  the  ruins  we  might  have 
caused.  From  my  elevated  station  I  looked  down, 
and  looked  back  upon  the  scene,  which  in  a  moment 
told  its  own  tale,  and  wrote  all  its  records  on  my  heart 
for  ever. 

Here  was  the  map  of  the  passion  that  now  had 
finished.  The  horse  was  planted  immovably,  with  his 
fore-feet  upon  the  paved  crest  of  the  central  road 
He  of  the  whole  party  might  be  supposed  untouched 
by  the  passion  of  death.  The  little  cany  carriage  — 
partly,  perhaps,  from  the  violent  torsion  of  the  wheels 
in  its  recent  movement,  partly  from  the  thundering 
blow  we  had  given  to  it  —  as  if  it  sympathized  with 
human  horror,  was  all  alive  with  tremblings  and  shiv- 
erings.  The  young  man  trembled  not,  nor  shivered. 
He  sat  like  a  rock.  But  his  was  the  steadiness  of 
agitation  frozen  into  rest  by  horror.  As  yet  he  dared 
>iot  to  look  round  ;  for  he  knew  that,  if  anything 
remained  to  do,  by  him  it  could  no  longer  he  done. 
And  as  yet  he  knew  not  for  certain  if  their  safety 
were  accomplished.  But  the  lady - 

But  the  lady - !  Oh,  heavens  !  will  that  spectacle 

ever  depart  from  my  dreams,  as  she  rose  and  sank 
apon  her  seat,  sank  and  rose,  threw  up  her  arms  wildlj 

heaven,  clutched  at  some  visionary  object  in  the  iir 


THE  VISION  OF  SUDDEN  DEATH. 


571 


fainting,  praying,  ra^  ing,  despairing  ?  Figure  to  your¬ 
self,  reader,  the  elements  of  the  case  ;  suffer  me  to 
recall  before  your  mind  the  circumstances  of  that 
unparalleled  situation.  From  the  silence  and  deep 
peace  of  this  saintly  summer  night  —  from  the  pa¬ 
thetic  blending  of  this  sweet  moonlight,  dawnlight, 
dreamlight  —  from  the  manly  tenderness  of  this  flat- 
tering,  whispering,  murmuring  love  — -  suddenly  as 
from  the  woods  and  fields  —  suddenly  as  from  the 
chambers  of  the  air  opening  in  revelation  —  suddenly 
as  from  the  ground  yawning  at  her  feet,  leaped  upon 
her,  with  the  flashing  of  cataracts,  Death  the  crowned 
phantom,  with  all  the  equipage  of  his  terrors,  and  thj 
tiger  roar  of  his  voice. 

The  moments  were  numbered ;  the  strife  was  fin 
shed  ;  the  vision  was  closed.  In  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  our  flying  horses  had  carried  us  to  the  termina¬ 
tion  of  the  umbrageous  aisle  :  at  right  angles  we 
wheeled  into  our  former  direction  ;  the  turn  of  t£.<e 
ro&d  carried  the  scene  out  of  my  eyes  in  an  instant* 
and  swept  it  into  my  dreams  for  ever. 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


SECTION  THE  THIRD.  —  DREAM-FUGUE. 

BOUNDED  ON  THE  PRECEDING  THEME  OF  SUDDEN  DKATX 

*  Whence  the  sound 

Of  instruments,  that  made  melodious  chime, 

Was  heard,  of  harp  and  organ  ;  and  who  moved 
Their  stops  and  chords,  was  seen  ;  his  volant  touch 
Instinct  through  all  proportions,  low  and  high, 

Fled  and  pursued  transverse  the  resonant  fugue.* 

Par.  Lost,  B  xi- 

Tumultuosissimamente . 

Passion  of  sudden  death !  that  once  in  youth  I  read 
^nd  interpreted  by  the  shadows  of  thy  averted  signs  ! 81 

—  rapture  of  panic  taking  the  shape  (which  amongst 
tombs  in  churches  I  have  seen)  of  woman  bursting 
ker  sepulchral  bonds  —  of  woman’s  Ionic  form  bend¬ 
ing  from  the  ruins  of  her  grave  with  arching  foot,  witi 
eyes  upraised,  with  clasped  adoring  hands  —  waiting 
watching,  trembling,  praying  for  the  trumpet’s  call  to 
rise  from  dust  for  ever  !  Ah,  vision  too  fearful  of 
shuddering  humanity  on  the  brink  of  almighty  abysses  ! 

—  vision  that  didst  start  back,  that  didst  reel  away, 
like  a  shir veiling  scroll  from  before  the  wrath  of  fire 
racing  on  the  wings  of  the  wind  !  Epilepsy  so  brief 
Df  horror,  wherefore  is  it  that  thou  canst  not  die  ? 
Passing  so  suddenly  into  darkness,  wherefore  is  it  that 
still  thou  sheddest  thy  sad  funeral  blights  upon  th« 
gorgeous  mosaics  of  dreams  ?  Fragment  of  music  toa 

r  57^] 


DREAM-FUGUE. 


57  S 


passionate,  heard  once,  and  heard  no  more,  what  aileth 
»hee,  that  thy  deep  rolling  chords  come  up  at  intervals 
through  all  the  worlds  of  sleep,  and  after  forty  years, 
have  lost  no  element  of  horror  ? 

I. 

Lo,  it  is  summer  —  almighty  summer  !  The  ever* 
lasting  gates  of  life  and  summer  are  thrown  open  wide , 
and  on  the  ocean,  tranquil  £nd  verdant  as  a  savannah, 
the  unknown  lady  from  the  dreadful  vision  and  I  my¬ 
self  are  floating  —  she  upon  a  fiery  pinnace,  and  I  upon 
an  English  three-decker.  Both  of  us  are  wooing  gales 
of  festal  happiness  within  the  domain  of  our  common 
country,  within  that  ancient  watery  park,  within  that 
pathless  chase  of  ocean,  where  England  takes  her 
pleasure  as  a  huntress  through  winter  and  summer, 
from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun.  Ah,  what  a  wilder¬ 
ness  of  floral  beauty  was  hidden,  or  was  suddenly  re¬ 
vealed,  upon  the  tropic  islands  through  which  the 
pinnace  moved  !  And  upon  her  deck  what  a  bevy  of 
human  flowers  —  young  women  how  lovely,  young 
men  how  noble,  that  were  dancing  together,  and 
slowly  drifting  towards  us  amidst  music  and  incense, 
amidst  blossoms  from  forests  and  gorgeous  corymbi 
fzom  vintages,  amidst  natural  carolling  and  the  echoes 
of  sweet  girlish  laughter.  Slowly  the  pinnace  nearo 
-  s,  gaily  she  hails  us,  and  silently  she  disappears  be¬ 
neath  the  shadow'  of  our  mighty  bows.  But  then,  as 
at  some  signal  from  heaven,  the  music,  and  the  cards, 
and  the  sweet  echoing  of  girlish  laughter  —  all  are 
hushed.  What  evil  has  smitten  the  pinrace,  meeting 
or  overtaking  her  ?  Did  ruin  to  our  friends  couch 
within  our  own  dreedful  shadow  ?  Was  our  she  do w 


574 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


the  shadow  of  death  ?  I  looked  over  the  bow  for 
answer,  and,  behold !  the  pinnace  was  dismantled  ; 
the  revel  and  the  revellers  were  found  no  more  ;  th8 
glory  of  the  vintage  was  dust ;  and  the  forests  with 
their  beauty  were  left  without  a  witness  upon  the 
seas.  4  But  where,’  and  I  turned  to  our  crew  — 
‘where  are  the  lovely  women  that  danced  beneath 
the  awning  of  flowers  and  clustering  corymbi !  Whither 
have  fled  the  noble  young  men  that  danced  with 
them  ?  ’  Answer  there  was  none.  But  suddenly  the 
man  at  the  masthead,  whose  countenance  darkened 
with  alarm,  cried  out,  ‘  Sail  on  the  weather  beam ! 
Down  she  comes  upon  us  :  in  seventy  seconds  she 
ilso  will  founder.’ 


n. 

1  looked  to  the  weather  side,  apd  the  summer  had 
departed.  The  sea  was  rocking,  and  shaken  with 
gathering  wrath.  Upon  its  surface  sat  mighty  mists, 
which  grouped  themselves  into  arches  and  long  cathe¬ 
dral  aisles.  Down  one  of  these,  with  the  fiery  pace  of 
a  quarrel  from  a  cross-bow,  ran  a  frigate  right  athwart 
our  course.  ‘  Are  they  mad  ?  ’  some  voice  exclaimed 
from  our  deck.  ‘  Do  they  woo  their  ruin  ?  ’  But  in 
a  moment,  she  was  close  upon  us,  some  impulse  of  a 
heady  current  or  local  vortex  gave  a  wheeling  bias  to 
her  course,  and  off  she  forged  without  a  shock.  As 
she  ran  past  us,  high  aloft  amongst  the  shrouds  stood 
the  lady  of  the  pinnace.  The  deeps  opened  ahead  in 
malice  to  receive  her,  towering  surges  of  foam  ran  after 
her,  the  billows  were  fierce  to  catch  her.  But  far 
away  she  wa3  borne  into  desert  spaces  of  the  sei , 
vhilst  still  by  sight  I  followed  her  as  she  ran  before 


DREAM-FL  GUE. 


575 


thi  howLiig  gaie,  chased  by  angry  sea-birds  and  by 
maddening  billows ;  still  I  saw  her,  as  at  the  moment 
when  she  ran  past  us,  standing  amongst  the  shrouds 
with  her  white  draperies  streaming  before  the  wind 
There  she  stood,  with  hair  dishevelled,  one  hand 
clutched  amongst  the  tackling  —  rising,  sinking,  flut¬ 
tering,  trembling,  praying  — -  there  for  leagues  I  saw 
her  as  she  stood,  raising  at  intervals  one  hand  to 
heaven,  amidst  the  fiery  crests  of  the  pursuing  waves 
and  the  raving  of  the  storm  ;  until  at  last,  upon  a 
sound  from  afar  of  malicious  laughter  and  mockery,  all 
was  hidden  for  ever  in  driving  showers  ;  and  after¬ 
wards,  but  when  I  know  not,  nor  how. 

m. 

Sweet  funeral  bells  from  some  incalculable  distance, 
wailing  over  the  dead  that  die  before  the  dawn,  awak¬ 
ened  me  as  I  slept  in  a  boat  moored  to  some  familiar 
shore.  The  morning  twilight  even  then  was  breaking; 
and,  by  the  dusky  revelations  which  it  spread,  I  saw  a 
girl,  adorned  with  a  garland  of  white  roses  about  her 
head  for  some  great  festival,  running  along  the  solitary 
strand  in  extremity  of  haste.  Her  running  was  the 
running  of  panic  ;  and  often  she  looked  back  as  to 
some  dreadful  enemy  in  the  rear.  But  when  I  leaped 
ashore,  and  followed  on  her  steps  to  warn  her  of  a  peri] 
in  front,  alas  !  from  me  she  fled  as  from  another  peril, 
and  vainly  I  shouted  to  her  of  quicksands  that  lay 
ahead.  Faster  and  faster  she  ran  ;  round  a  promon¬ 
tory  of  rocks  she  wheeled  out  of  sight ;  in  an  instant  I 
also  wheeled  round  it,  but  only  to  see  the  treacherous 
sands  gathering  above  her  nead.  Already  her  person 
was  buried  ;  only  the  fair  young  head  and  the  diadem 


576 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


of  white  roses  around  it  were  still  visible  to  the  pit y« 
ing  heavens :  and,  last  of  all  was  visible  one  whita 
marble  arm.  I  saw  by  the  early  twilight  this  fail 
young  head,  as  it  was  sinking  down  to  darkness  —  saw 
ihis  marble  arm,  as  it  rose  above  her  head  and  her 
treacherous  grave,  tossing,  faltering,  rising,  clutching 
sis  at  some  false  deceiving  hand  stretched  out  from  the 
clouds  —  saw  this  marble  arm  uttering  her  dying  hope, 
and  then  uttering  her  dying  despair.  The  head,  the 
diadem,  the  arm  —  these  all  had  sunk;  at  last  over 
these  also  the  cruel  quicksand  had  closed ;  and  no 
memorial  of  the  fair  young  girl  remained  on  earth, 
except  my  own  solitary  tears,  and  the  funeral  bells 
from  the  desert  seas,  that,  rising  again  more  softly, 
sang  a  requiem  over  the  grave  of  the  buried  child,  and 
over  her  blighted  dawn. 

I  sat,  and  wept  in  secret  the  tears  that  men  have 
ever  given  to  the  memory  of  those  that  died  before 
the  dawn,  and  by  the  treachery  of  earth,  our  mother. 
But  suddenly  the  tears  and  funeral  bells  were  hushed 
by  a  shout  as  of  many  nations,  and  by  a  roar  as  from 
some  great  king’s  artillery,  advancing  rapidly  along 
the  valleys,  and  heard  afar  by  echoes  from  the  moun¬ 
tains.  ‘  Hush  !  ’  I  said,  as  I  bent  my  ear  earthward* 
to  listen  —  ‘  hush  !  —  this  either  is  the  very  anarchy 
of  strife,  or  else  ’  —  and  then  I  listened  more  pro¬ 
foundly,  and  whispered  as  I  raised  my  head  —  ‘  or 
else,  oh  heavens !  it  is  victory  that  is  final,  victory  that 
I  wallows  up  all  strife.’ 


IV. 


Immediately,  in  trance,  I  was  carried  over  land  an 4 
tea  to  some  distant  kingdom,  and  placed  upon  a  fcrv 


DREAM-FUGUE. 


577 


pmphai  car,  amongst  companions  crowned  with  laurel 
I’he  darkness  of  gathering  midnight,  brooding  over  all 
the  land,  hid  from  us  the  mighty  crowds  that  were 
weaving  restlessly  about  ourselves  as  a  centre :  we 
heard  them,  hut  saw  them  not.  Ti  lings  had  arrived, 
within  an  hour,  of  a  grandeur  that  measured  itself 
against  centuries ;  too  full  of  pathos  they  were,  too 
full  of  joy,  to  utter  themselves  by  other  language  than 
by  tears,  by  restless  anthems,  and  Te  Dcums  reverbe¬ 
rated  from  the  choirs  and  orchestras  of  earth.  These 
tidings  we  that  sat  upon  the  laurelled  car  had  it  for 
our  privilege  to  publish  amongst  all  nations.  And 
already,  by  signs  audible  through  the  darkness,  by 
snortings  and  tramplings,  our  angry  horses,  that  knew 
no  fear  of  fleshy  weariness,  upbraided  us  with  delay. 
Wherefore  was  it  that  we  delayed?  We  waited  for  a 
secret  word  that  should  hear  witness  to  the  hope  of 
nations,  as  now  accomplished  for  ever.  At  midnight 
the  secret  word  arrived;  which  word  was  —  Waterloo 
and  Recovered  Christendom !  The  dreadful  word 
Tthone  by  its  own  light ;  before  us  it  went ;  high  above 
v  ur  leaders’  heads  it  rode,  and  spread  a  golden  light 
Dver  the  paths  which  we  traversed.  Every  city,  at  the 
presence  of  the  secret  word,  threw  open  its  gates.  The 
rivers  were  conscious  as  we  crossed.  All  the  forests, 
as  we  ran  along  their  margins,  shivered  in  homage  to 
ihe  secret  word.  And  the  darkness  comprehended  it. 

Two  hours  after  midnigh;  we  approached  a  mighty 
Minster.  Its  gates,  which  rose  to  the  clouds,  wrere 
dosed.  But  when  the  dreadful  word,  that  rode  before 
as,  reached  them  with  its  golden  light,  silently  they 
proved  back  upon  their  hinges ;  and  at  a  flying  gallop 
mr  equipage  entered  the  grimd  aisle  of  the  cathedral, 
37 


o78 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


Headlong  was  our  pace ;  and  at  every  altar,  in  tha 
little  chapels  and  oratories  to  the  right  hand  and  left 
of  our  course,  the  lamps,  dying  or  sickening,  kindled 
anew  in  sympathy  with  the  secret  word  that  was  fly¬ 
ing  past.  Forty  leagues  we  might  have  run  in  the 
cathedral,  and  as  yet  no  strength  of  morning  light  had 
reached  us  wlen  before  us  we  saw  the  aerial  galleries 
of  organ  and  choir.  Every  pinnacle  of  the  fretwork,, 
every  station  of  advantage  amongst  the  traceries,  was 
crested  by  white-robed  choristers,  that  sang  deliver¬ 
ance  ;  that  wept  no  more  tears,  as  once  their  fathers 
had  wept ;  but  at  intervals  that  sang  together  to  the 
generations,  saying, 

*  Chant  the  deliverer’s  praise  in  every  tcngue,’ 
and  receiving  answers  from  afar, 

*  Such  as  once  in  heaven  and  earth  were  sung.* 

And  of  their  chanting  was  no  end ;  of  our  headlong 
pace  was  neither  pause  nor  slackening. 

Thus,  as  we  ran  like  torrents  —  thus,  as  we  swept 
with  bridal  rapture  over  the  Campo  Santo  82  of  the 
cathedral  graves  —  suddenly  we  became  aware  of  a 
^ast  necropolis  rising  upon  the  far-off  horizon  —  a  city 
of  sepulchres,  built  within  the  saintly  cathedral  for  the 
warrior  dead  that  rested  from  their  feuds  on  earth. 
Of  purple  granite  was  the  necropolis ;  yet,  in  the  first 
minute,  it  lay  like  a  purple  stain  upon  the  horizon,  so 
mighty  was  the  distance.  In  the  second  minute  it 
trembled  through  many  changes,  growing  into  terraces 
And  towers  of  wondrous  altitude,  so  mighty  was  the 
ee  In  the  third  minute  already,  with  our  dreadful 
gallop,  we  were  entering  its  suburbs.  Vast  sareophag' 
rose  on  every  side,  having  towers  and  turrets  that, 
upon  the  limits  of  the  central  aisle,  strode  forward 


DREAM-FUGUE. 


579 


frith  haughty  intrusion,  that  ran  back  with  mighty 
shadows  into  answering  recesses.  Every  scarcophagus 
showed  many  bas-reliefs — bas-reliefs  of  battles  and 
of  battle-fields  ;  battles  from  forgotten  ages  —  battles 
from  yesterday  —  battle-fields  that,  long  since,  nature 
had  healed  and  reconciled  to  herself  with  the  sweet 
oblivion  r'  flowers  —  battle-fields  that  were  yet  angry 
and  crimson  with  carnage.  Where  the  terraces  ran, 
there  did  we  run ;  where  the  towers  curved,  there  did 
we  curve.  With  the  flight  of  swallows  our  horses 
swept  round  every  angle.  Like  rivers  in  flood,  wheel¬ 
ing  round  headlands  —  like  hurricanes  that  ride  into 
the  secrets  of  forests  —  faster  than  ever  light  unwove 
the  mazes  of  darkness,  our  flying  equipage  carried 
earthly  passions,  kindled  warrior  instincts,  amongst 
the  dust  that  lay  around  us  —  dust  oftentimes  of  our 
noble  fathers  that  had  slept  in  God  from  Creci  to  Tra¬ 
falgar.  And  now  had  we  reached  the  last  sarcophagus, 
now  were  we  abreast  of  the  last  bas-relief,  already  had 
we  recovered  the  arrow-like  flight  of  the  illimitable 
central  aisle,  when  coming  up  this  aisle  to  meet  us  we 
beheld  afar  off  a  female  child,  that  rode  in  a  carriage 
as  frail  as  flowers.  The  mists,  which  went  before  her, 
hid  the  fawns  that  drew  her,  but  could  not  hide  the 
shells  and  tropic  flowers  with  which  she  played  —  but 
could  not  hide  the  lovely  smiles  by  which  she  uttered 
_er  trust  in  the  mighty  cathedral,  and  in  the  cherubim 
that  looked  down  upon  her  from  the  mighty  shafts  of 
'ts  pillars.  Face  to  face  she  was  meeting  us ;  face  to 
&ce  she  rode,  as  if  danger  mere  were  none.  ‘  Oh, 
baby !  ’  I  exclaimed,  ‘  shalt  thou  be  the  ransom  foi 
Waterloo?  Must  we,  that  carry  tidings  of  great  joy 
*0  every  people  be  messengers  of  ruin  to  thee  i  ’  Is 


580 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH. 


horror  I  rose  at  the  thought ;  but  then  also,  in  horroi 
at  the  thought,  rose  one  that  was  sculptured  on  a  bas- 
relief —  a  Dying  Trumpeter.  Solemnly  from  the  field 
of  battle  he  rose  to  his  feet ;  and,  unslinging  his  stony 
trumpet,  carried  it,  in  his  dying  anguish,  to  his  stony 
lips  —  sounding  once,  and  yet  once  again;  proclama* 
tion  that,  in  thy  ears,  oh  baby  !  spoke  from  the  battle¬ 
ments  of  death.  Immediately  deep  shadows  feh 
between  us,  and  aboriginal  silence.  The  choir  had 
ceased  to  sing.  The  hoofs  of  our  horses,  the  dreadful 
rattle  of  our  harness,  the  groaning  of  our  wheels, 
alarmed  the  graves  no  more.  By  horror  the  bas-relief 
had  been  unlocked  into  life.  By  horror  we,  that  were 
so  full  of  life,  we  men  and  our  horses,  with  their  fiery 
fore-legs  rising  in  mid  air  to  their  everlasting  gallop, 
were  frozen  to  a  bas-relief.  Then  a  third  time  the 
trumpet  sounded ;  the  seals  were  taken  off  all  pulses ; 
life,  and  the  frenzy  of  life,  tore  into  their  channels 
again ;  again  the  choir  burst  forth  in  sunny  grandeur, 
as  from  the  muffling  of  storms  and  darkness ;  again 
the  thunderings  of  our  horses  carried  temptation  into 
the  graves.  One  cry  burst  from  our  lips,  as  the  clouds, 
Irawing  off  from  the  aisle,  showed  it  empty  before  us 
—  ‘  Whither  has  the  infant  fled  ?  —  is  the  young  child 
caught  up  to  God  ?  ’  Lo !  afar  off,  in  a  vast  recess, 
rose  three  mighty  windows  to  the  clouds ;  and  on  a 
level  with  their  summits,  at  height  insuperable  to  man, 
*ose  an  altar  of  purest  alabaster.  On  its  eastern  face 
was  trembling  a  crimson  glory.  A  glory  was  it  from 
,he  reddening  dawn  that  now  streamed  through  the 
windows?  Was  it  from  the  crimson  robes  of  tha 
martyrs  painted  on  the  windows  ?  Was  it  from  tbt 
tloody  bas-reliefs  of  earth?  There,  suddenly,  withii 


DREAM-PUGUE. 


581 


khat  crimson  radiance,  rose  tlie  apparition  of  a  woman  ’* 
fiead,  and  then  of  a  woman’s  figure.  The  child  it  waa 
—  grown  up  to  woman’s  height.  Clinging  to  the 
horns  of  the  altar,  voiceless  she  stood  —  sinking,  ris¬ 
ing,  raving,  despairing ;  and  behind  the  volume  of  in¬ 
cense,  that,  night  and  day,  streamed  upwards  from  the 
altar,  dimly  was  seen  the  fiery  font,  and  the  shadow 
of  that  dreadful  being  who  should  have  baptized  her 
with  the  baptism  of  death.  But  by  her  side  was 
kneeling  her  better  angel,  that  hid  his  face  with  wings  ; 
that  w  ept  and  pleaded  for  her ;  that  prayed  when  she 
could  not ;  that  fought  with  Heaven  by  tears  for  her 
deliverance ;  which  also,  as  he  raised  his  immortal 
countenance  from  his  wings,  I  saw,  by  the  glory  in  his 
eye,  that  from  Heaven  he  had  won  at  last. 


V. 

Then  was  completed  the  passion  of  the  mighty 
fugue.  The  golden  tubes  of  the  organ,  which  as  yet  had 
but  muttered  at  intervals  —  gleaming  amongst  clouds 
and  surges  of  incense  —  threw  up,  as  from  fountains 
unfathomable,  columns  of  heart-shattering  music. 
Choir  and  anti-choir  were  filling  fast  with  unknown 
voices.  Thou  also,  Dying  Trumpeter  !  —  with  thy 
love  that  was  victorious,  and  thy  anguish  that  was 
finishing  —  didst  enter  the  tumult ;  trumpet  and  echo 

faiewell  love,  and  farewell  anguish  —  rang  through 
iie  dreadful  sanctus.  Oh,  darkness  of  the  grave! 
mat  from  the  crimson  altar  and  from  the  fiery  font 
^ert  visited  and  searched  by  the  effulgence  in  the 
ingei’s  eye  —  were  these  indeed  thy  children  ?  Pomps 
af  life,  that,  from  the  burials  of  centuries,  rose  again 
o  !he  voice  of  perfect  joy,  did  ye  indeed  mingle  with 


582 


THE  ENGLISH  MAIL-COACH 


ihe  festivals  of  Death?  Lo  !  as  I  looked  back  fo? 
seventy  leagues  through  the  mighty  cathedral,  I  saw 
the  quick  and  the  dead  that  sang  together  to  God, 
together  that  sang  to  the  generations  of  man.  All 
the  hosts  of  jubilation,  like  armies  that  ride  in  pur¬ 
suit,  moved  with  one  step.  Us,  that,  with  laurelled 
heads,  were  passing  from  the  cathedral,  they  overtook, 
and,  as  with  a  garment,  they  wrapped  us  round  with 
thunders  greater  than  our  own.  As  brothers  we  moved 
together ;  to  the  dawn  that  advanced — to  the  stars 
that  fled ;  rendering  thanks  to  God  in  the  highest  — • 
that,  having  hid  his  face  through  one  generation  be¬ 
hind  thick  clouds  of  War,  once  again  was  ascending—* 
from  the  Campo  Santo  of  Waterloo  was  ascending -- 
in  the  visions  of  Peace ;  rendering  thanks  for  thee, 
young  girl !  whom,  having  overshadowed  with  his  in¬ 
effable  passion  of  death,  suddenly  did  God  relent ; 
suffered  thy  angel  to  turn  aside  his  arm ;  and  even  in 
thee,  sister  unknown !  shown  to  me  for  a  moment  only 
to  be  hidden  for  ever,  found  an  occasion  to  glorify  hia 
goodness.  A  thousand  times,  amongst  the  phantoms 
of  sleep,  have  I  seen  thee  entering  the  gates  of  the 
golden  dawn  —  with  the  secret  word  riding  before 
thee  —  with  the  armies  of  the  grave  behind  thee : 
seen  thee  sinking,  rising,  raving,  despairing  ;  a  thou¬ 
sand  times  in  the  worlds  of  sleep  have  seen  thee  fol¬ 
lowed  by  God’s  angel  through  storms  ;  through  desert 
Heas ;  through  the  darkness  of  quicksands ;  through 
ireams,  and  the  dreadful  revelations  that  are  in  dreams 
—  only  that  at  the  last,  with  one  sling  of  his  victorious 
arm,  he  might  snatch  thee  back  from  ruin,  and  migh? 
imblazon  in  thy  deliverance  the  endless  resurrection! 
if  his  love ! 


NOTES 


- 0 - - 

l Whew  Mr.  Da  Quincey  undertook  the  revision  of  his  writings,  Sn 
1883,  The  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater  suffered  the 
Host  violent  change  at  his  hands.  The  original  work  with  all  its 
iplendor  and  abruptness  had  been  before  the  world  for  more  than 
thirty  years,  and  had  been  the  foundation  of  the  author’s  fame. 
Written  when  his  power  was  most  intense,  it  was  revised  when  the 
garrulousness  of  age  made  him  linger  over  the  recollections  of  tha 
portion  of  his  life,  but  the  original  work  has  passed  so  completely 
into  literature  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  revision  to  dislodge  it  and 
take  its  place.  In  issuing  a  new  edition,  therefore,  of  the  writings  of 
De  Quincey,  it  has  been  thought  best  to  leave  “  The  Confessions  ”  and 
the  “Suspiria”  intact,  as  originally  published,  and  to  arrange  under 
the  title,  “Additions  to  the  Confessions  of  an  Opium  Eater,”  those 
passages  which  were  introduced  in  the  revised  edition,  or  added  as 
notes.  By  this  means,  while  the  original  work  is  retained  in  its  integ¬ 
rity,  the  reader  is  put  in  possession  of  all  that  De  Quincey  subse¬ 
quently  wrote  under  the  same  title,  and  by  means  of  the  references 
given  below  is  enabled  to  connect  the  several  additions  with  their 
proper  chronological  place  in  the  main  narrative. 

The  article  on  “  Coleridge  and  Opium  Eating,”  is  placed  in  this 
volume  in  order  to  bring  together  all  that  De  Quincey  has  written  on 
the  subject  of  his  own  experience  in  this  habit,  although  the  main 
part  of  the  paper  is  otherwise  associated,  and  would  properly  fall  into 
ilace  in  another  volume.  “  The  English  Mail  Coach,”  as  he  has  him¬ 
self  explained,  belongs  properly  with  the  “  Suspiria.”  This  explana¬ 
tion  occurs  in  one  of  his  prefaces,  and  is  herewith  subjoined.] 

’*  The  English  Mail-Coach.”  —  This  little  paper,  according  to  my 
original  intention,  formed  part  of  the  “  Suspiria  de  Profundis,”  from 
which,  for  a  momentary  purpose,  I  did  not  scruple  to  detach  it,  anc 
I)  publish  it  f part,  as  sufficiently  intelligible  even  when  dislocatad 
ironc  its  place  in  a  large**  whole.  To  my  surprise,  however,  one  or 
%sro  critics,  not  carelessly  in  conversation,  but  deliberately  iD  prnt 


584 


NOTES. 


professed  their  inability  to  apprehend  the  meaning  of  the  whole  of 
to  follow  the  links  of  the  connection  between  its  several  parts.  I  am 
tnyself  as  little  able  to  understand  where  the  difficulty  lies,  or  to  de  • 
tect  any  lurking  obscurity,  as  those  critics  found  themselves  to  un¬ 
ravel  my  logic.  Possibly  I  may  not  be  an  indifferent  and  neutral 
Judge  in  such  a  case.  I  will  therefore  sketch  a  brief  abstract  of  the 
little  paper  according  to  my  own  original  design,  and  then  leave  the 
reader  to  judge  how  far  this  design  is  kept  in  sight  through  the  actua. 
execution. 

Thirty-seven  years  ago,  or  rather  more,  accident  made  me,  in 
the  dead  of  night,  and  of  a  night  memorably  solemn,  the  solitary 
witness  to  an  appalling  scene,  which  threatened  instant  death,  in  a 
shape  the  most  terrific,  to  two  young  people,  whom  I  had  no  means 
of  assisting,  except  in  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  give  them  a  most  hur¬ 
ried  warning  of  their  danger;  but  even  that  not  until  they  stood 
within  the  very  shadow  of  the  catastrophe,  being  divided  from  the 
most  frightful  of  deaths  by  scarcely  more,  if  more  at  all,  than  sev¬ 
enty  seconds. 

Such  was  the  scene,  such  in  its  outline,  from  which  the  whole  of 
this  paper  radiates  as  a  natural  expansion.  The  scene  is  circumstan¬ 
tially  narrated  in  Section  the  Second,  entitled,  “The  Vision  of  Sudden 
Death.” 

But  a  movement  of  horror  and  of  spontaneous  recoil  from  this 
dreadful  scene  naturally  carried  the  whole  of  that  scene,  raised  and 
idealized  into  my  dreams,  and  very  soon  into  a  rolling  succession  of 
dreams.  The  actual  scene,  as  looked  down  upon  from  the  box  of  the 
mail,  was  transformed  into  a  dream,  as  tumultuous  and  changing  as 
a  musical  fugue.  This  troubled  dream  is  circumstantially  reported  in 
Section  the  Third,  entitled,  “  Dream-Fugue  upon  the  Theme  of  Sudden 
Death.”  What  I  had  beheld  from  my  seat  upon  the  mail,  — the  scen- 
ical  strife  of  action  and  passion,  of  anguish  and  fear,  as  I  had  there 
witnessed  them  moving  in  ghostly  silence ;  this  duel  between  life  and 
death  narrowing  itself  to  a  point  of  such  exquisite  evanescence  as  the 
collision  neared, — all  these  elements  of  the  scene  blended,  under  the 
’aw  of  association,  with  the  previous  and  permanent  features  of  disj¬ 
unction  investing  the  mail  itself,  which  features  at  that  time  lay  — 
1st,  in  velocity  unprecedented ;  2dlv,  in  the  power  and  beauty  of  the 
horses ;  3dly,  in  the  official  connection  with  the  government  of  a  great 
nation  ;  aud,  4thlv,  in  the  function,  almost  a  consecrated  function,  of 
publishing  and  diffusing  through  the  land  the  great  political  events 
especially  the  great  batt’es  during  a  conflict  of  unparalleled 
vrandear.  These  honor* -y  distinctions  are  all  described  eircumaSAH 


NOTES. 


585 


ft&IIy  in  the  Finsr  or  in  .odnctory  section  (“  The  Glory  of  Motion  ”). 
The  three  first  were  distinctions  maintained  at  all  times;  but  the  fourth 
and  grandest  belonged  exclusively  to  the  war  with  Napoleon ;  and 
this  it  was  which  mcst  naturally  introduced  Waterloo  into  the  dream 
Waterloo,  I  understood,  was  the  particular  feature  of  the  “Dream- 
Fugue  ”  which  my  censors  were  least  able  to  account  for.  Yet  surely 
Waterloo,  which,  in  common  with  every  other  great  battle,  it  had  been 
our  special  privilege  to  publish  over  all  the  land,  most  naturally  en¬ 
tered  the  Dream  under  the  license  of  our  privilege.  If  not  —  if  theie 
be  anything  amiss  —  let  the  Dream  be  responsible.  The  Dream  is  a 
law  to  itself;  and  as  well  quarrel  with  a  rainbow  for  showing,  or  for 
not  showing,  a  secondary  arch.  So  far  as  1  know,  every  element  in 
the  shifting  movements  of  the  Dream  derived  itself  either  primarily 
from  the  incidents  of  the  actual  scene,  or  from  secondary  features 
associated  with  the  mail.  For  example,  the  cathedral  aisle  derived  it¬ 
self  from  the  mimic  combination  of  features  which  grouped  themselves 
together  at  the  point  of  approaching  collision,  namely,  an  arrow-like 
section  of  the  road,  six  hundred  yards  long,  under  the  solemn  lights 
described,  with  lofty  trees  meeting  overhead  in  arches.  The  guard’s 
horn,  again  —  a  humble  instrument  in  itself  —  was  yet  glorified  as  the 
organ  of  publication  for  so  many  great  national  events.  And  the  aa- 
cident  of  the  Dying  Trumpeter,  who  rises  from  a  marble  bas-relief, 
and  carries  a  marble  trumpet  to  his  marble  lips  for  the  purpose  of 
warning  the  female  infant,  was  doubtless  secretly  suggested  by  my 
own  imperfect  effort  to  seize  the  guard’s  horn,  and  to  blow  a  warning 
blast.  But  the  Dream  knows  best;  and  the  Dream,  I  say  again,  is  th« 
responsible  party. 

Note  1.  Page  xi. 

Jin  reprinting  the  address  “  From  the  Author  to  the  Reader,”  m 
the  revised  edition  of  “The  Confessions  of  an  Opium  Eater,”  De 
^uincey  heads  it  “  Original  Preface  in  the  Year  1821.’  The  attentive 
reader  will  discover,  however,  that  the  author  has  not  contented  him¬ 
self  with  reprinting  the  preface,  as  the  caption  would  intimate,  as  a 
historical  matter,  but  has  altered  this  “original  preface”  in  verbal 
particulars,  and,  amongst  other  slight  changes,  has  filled  in  the  blanks 
bo  that  one  reads  “  the  eloquent  and  benevolent  William  Wilberforce; 
ifae  late  Dean  of  Carlisle,  Dr.  Isaac  Milner ;  the  first  Lord  Erskine  • 

Mr.  - ,  the  philosopher,  a  late  under-secretary  of  state  (viz.,  Mr. 

Addington,  brother  to  the  first  Lord  Sidmouth,  who  described  to  me  the 
•ensation  which  first  drove  him  to  the  use  of  opium,  in  the  very  sam« 
tfords  as  the  Dean  of  Carlisle,  viz.  :  ‘  that  he  felt  as  though  rata  wert 


NOTES 


186 

pnawing  at  the  coats  of  his  stomach  ’);  Samuel  T(iy  .or  Coleridge,  and 
many  others  hardly  less  celebrated.”] 

Note  2.  Page  xi. 

“ The  late  Dean  of - — Isaac  Milner.  He  was  nominally 

known  to  the  public  as  Dean  of  Carlisle,  being  colloquially  always 
called  Dean  Milner  ;  but  virtual^  he  was  best  known  in  his  own  cir¬ 
cle  as  the  head  of  Queen’s  College,  Cambridge,  where  he  usually 
resided.  In  common  with  his  brother,  Joseph  of  Hull,  he  was  sub¬ 
stantially  a  Wesleyan  Methodist  ;  and  in  that  character,  as  regarded 
principles  and  the  general  direction  of  his  sympathies,  he  pursued  his 
deceased  brother’s  History  of  the  Christian  Church  down  to  the  era  of 
Luther.  In  these  days,  he  would  perhaps  not  be  styled  a  Methodist, 
but  simply  a  Low-Churchman.  By  wl  atever  title  described,  it  is 
meantime  remarkable  that  a  man  confessedly  so  conscientious  as  Dean 
Milner  could  have  reconciled  to  his  moral  views  the  holding  of  church 
preferment  so  important  as  this  deanery  in  combination  with  the  head¬ 
ship  of  an  important  college.  One  or  other  must  have  been  consciously 
neglected.  Such  a  record,  meantime,  powerfully  illustrates  the  ad¬ 
vances  made  by  the  Church  during  the  last  generation  in  practical 
homage  to  self-denying  religious  scruples.  A  very  lax  man  would  not 
in  these  days  allow  himself  to  do  that  which  thirty  years  ago  a  severe 
Church-Methodist  (regarded  by  many  even  as  a  fanatic)  persisted  in 
doing,  without  feeling  himself  called  on  for  apology.  If  I  have  not 
misapprehended  its  tenor,  this  case  serves  most  vividly  to  illustrate 
the  higher  standard  of  moral  responsibility  which  prevails  in  this  cur¬ 
rent  generation.  We  do  injustice  daily  to  our  own  age  ;  which,  by 
many  a  sign,  palpable  and  secret,  I  feel  to  be  more  emphatically,  than 
any  since  the  period  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Charles  I.,  an  intellectual, 
a  moving,  and  a  self-conflicting  age  :  and  inevitably,  where  the  intel¬ 
lect  has  been  preternaturally  awakened,  the  moral  sensibility  mugt 
soon  be  cominensurately  stirred.  The  very  distinctions,  psychologic 
or  metaphysical,  by  which,  as  its  hinges  and  articulations,  our  modern 
thinking  moves,  proclaim  the  subtler  character  of  the  questions  which 
now  occupy  our  thoughts.  Not  as  pedantic  only,  but  as  suspiciously 
unintelligible,  such  distinctions  would,  one  hundred  and  thirty  years 
ago,  have  been  viewed  as  indictable ;  and  perhaps  (in  company  with 
Mandeville’s  “Political  Economy”)  would  have  been  seriously  pre- 
\  Hed  as  a  nuisance  to  the  Middlesex  Quarter-Sessions.  Recurring', 
aowever,  to  Dean  Milner,  and  the  recoi lections  of  his  distinguished 
talents  amongst  the  contemporary  circles  of  the  first  generation  in  thi 
nineteenth  cestury,  I  wish  to  mention  that  these  talents  are  mod 


NOTES. 


587 


isebly  measured  by  any  of  his  occasional  writings,  all  drawn  from  him 
apparently  by  mere  pressure  of  casual  convenience.  In  conversation 
it  was  that  he  asserted  adequately  his  preeminent  place.  Wordsworth, 
whc  met  him  often  at  the  late  Lord  Lonsdale’s  table,  spoke  of  him  uni¬ 
formly  as  the  chief  potentate  colloquially  of  his  own  generation,  and 
as  the  man  beyond  all  others  (Burke  being  departed)  who  did  not  live 
upon  hb  recollections,  but  met  the  demands  of  every  question  that 
engaged  his  sympathy  by  spontaneous  and  elastic  movements  of  novel 
and  original  thought.  As  an  opium-eater,  Dean  Milner  was  understood 
to  be  a  strenuous  wrestler  with  the  physical  necessity  that  coerced  him 
into  this  habit.  From  several  quarters  I  have  heard  that  his  daily 
ration  was  34  grains  (or  about  850  drops  of  laudanum),  divided  into 
four  portions,  and  administered  to  him  at  regular  intervals  of  six 
hours  by  a  confidential  valet. 

Note  3.  Page  xi. 

“Mr.  - ,  the  philosopher — Who  is  Mr.  Dash,  the  philoso¬ 

pher  ?  Really  I  have  forgot.  Not  through  any  fault  of  my  own,  but 
on  the  motion  of  some  absurd  coward  having  a  voice  potential  at  the 
press,  all  the  names  were  struck  out  behind  my  back  in  the  first  edi¬ 
tion  of  the  book,  thirty-five  years  ago.  I  was  not  consulted  ;  and  did 
not  discover  the  absurd  blanks  until  months  afterwards,  when  I  was 
taunted  with  them  very  reasonably  by  a  caustic  reviewer.  Nothing 
could  have  a  more  ludicrous  effect  than  this  appeal  to  shadows  —  to 
my  Lora  Dash,  to  Dean  Dash,  and  to  Mr.  Secretary  Dash.  Very  nat¬ 
urally  it  thus  happened  to  Mr.  Philosopher  Dash  that  his  burning 
light,  alas !  was  extinguished  irrecoverably  in  the  general  melee. 
Meantime,  there  was  no  excuse  whatever  for  this  absurd  interference 
3uch  as  might  have  been  alleged  in  any  personality  capable  of  caus¬ 
ing  pain  to  any  one  person  concerned.  All  the  cases,  except,  perhaps, 
‘hat  of  Wilberforce  (about  which  I  have  at  this  moment  some  slight 
fingering  doubts),  were  matters  of  notoriety  to  large  circles  of  friends. 
It  is  due  to  Mr.  John  Taylor,  the  accomplished  publisher  of  the  work, 
that  I  should  acquit  him  of  any  share  in  tnis  absurdity. 

Note  4.  Page  xiii. 

[The  original  preface  stopped  at  this  point,  but  the  “  Original  Pref¬ 
ace  in  the  Year  1821,”  as  reprinted  by  Mr.  De  Quincey,  continues,  by 
tie  momentum  it  had  acquired,  for  two  or  three  pages  more,  which 
ire  here  given.  The  author,  in  the  last  paragraph,  it  will  be  seeD,  ad« 
*.«es  the  reader  that  he  must  ta*te  the  words  “  original  preface  ”  with 
T.me  modification.] 


588 


NOTES. 


And  at  this  point  I  shall  say  no  more  than  that  opium,  as  the  one 
Sole  catholic  anodyne  which  hitherto  has  been  revealed  to  man , 
Secondly,  as  the  one  sole  anodyne  which  in  a  vast  majority  of  cases  is 
irresistible ;  thirdly,  as  by  many  degrees  the  most  potent  of  all  known 
fountei  agents  to  nervous  irritation,  and  to  the  formidable  curse  ol 
tasdium  vitas. ;  fourthly,  as  by  possibility,  under  an  argument  undeni¬ 
ably  plausible,  alleged  by  myself,  the  sole  known  agent  —  not  for 
curing  wh^a  formed,  but  for  intercepting  whilst  likely  to  be  formed  — 
the  great  English  scourge  of  pulmonary  consumption ; — I  say  that 
opium,  as  wearing  these,  or  any  of  these,  four  beneficent  characteris¬ 
tics  —  I  say  that  any  agent  whatever  making  good  such  pretensions, 
no  matter  what  its  name,  is  entitled  haughtily  to  refuse  the  ordinary 
classification  and  treatment  which  opium  receives  in  books.  I  say 
that  opium,  or  any  agent  of  equal  power,  is  entitled  to  assume  that  it 
was  revealed  to  man  for  some  higher  object  than  that  it  should  fur¬ 
nish  a  target  for  moral  denunciations,  ignorant  where  they  are  not 
hypocritical,  childish  where  not  dishonest ;  that  it  should  be  set  up  as 
a  theatrical  scarecrow  for  superstitious  terrors,  of  which  the  result  is 
oftentimes  to  defraud  human  suffering  of  its  readiest  alleviation,  and 
of  which  the  purpose  is,  “  Ut  pueris  placeant  et  declamatio  fiant.”  * 

In  one  sense,  and  remotely,  all  medicines  and  modes  of  medical 
treatment  offer  themselves  as  anodynes  —  that  is,  so  far  as  they  promi¬ 
se  ultimately  to  relieve  the  suffering  connected  with  physical  mal- 
idies  or  infirmities.  But  we  do  not,  in  the  special  and  ordinary  sense, 
designate  as  “anodynes  ”  those  remedies  which  obtain  the  relief  from 
pain  only  as  a  secondary  and  distant  effect  following  out  from  the  curt 
of  the  ailment ;  but  those  only  we  call  anodynes  which  obtain  this  re¬ 
lief,  and  pursue  it  as  the  primary  and  immediate  object.  If,  by  giving 
tonics  to  a  child  suffering  periodic  pains  in  the  stomach,  we  were  ulti¬ 
mately  to  banish  those  pains,  this  would  not  warrant  us  in  calling 
Buch  tonics  by  the  name  of  anodynes ;  for  the  neutralization  of  the 
pains  would  be  a  circuitous  process  of  nature,  and  might  probably  re¬ 
quire  weeks  for  its  evolution.  But  a  true  anodyne  (as,  for  instance, 
half-a-dozen  drops  of  laudanum  or  a  dessert-spoonful  of  some  warm 
carminative  mixed  with  brandy)  will  often  banish  the  misery  suffered 
by  a  child  in  five  or  six  minutes.  Amongst  the  most  potent  of  ano¬ 
dynes,  we  may  rank  hemlock,  henbane,  chloroform,  and  opium.  But 
dnquestionab.y  the  three  first  have  a  most  narrow  field  of  action,  by 
lomparison  with  opium.  This,  beyond  all  other  agents  made  known 


*  That  they  may  wm  the  applause  of  schoolboys,  and  furnish  master  for 
Vice  essay. 


N01E8. 


589 


K>  man,  is  the  mightiest  for  its  command,  and  for  the  extent  of  itf 
command,  over  pain  ;  and  so  much  mightier  than  any  other,  that  I 
ihould  think,  in  a  Pagan  land,  supposing  it  to  have  been  adequately 
made  known  *  through  experimental  acquaintance  with  its  revolution* 
ary  magic,  opium  wouul  have  had  altars  and  priests  consecrated  to  its 
benign  and  tutelary  powers.  But  this  is  not  my  own  object  in  the  pres¬ 
ent  little  work.  Very  many  people  have  thoroughly  misconstrued 
this  object ;  and  therefore  I  beg  to  say  here,  in  closing  my  Original 
Preface,  a  little  remodelled,  that  what  I  contemplated  in  these  Con¬ 
fessions  was  to  emblazon  the  power  of  opium  —  not  over  bodily  disease 
and  pain,  but  over  the  grander  and  more  shadowy  world  of  dreams. 

Note  5.  Page  18. 

[At  the  mention  of  this  circumstance  in  the  revised  edition  of  the 
Confessions,  De  Quincey  enters  into  a  fuller  account  of  these  guar 
dians,  and  episodically  of  the  relation  of  guardianship.  These  page« 
ere  given  in  the  Additions,  p.  295  of  this  volume.] 

Note  6.  Page  20. 

[The  experience  summed  up  in  the  two  pages  ending  at  this  point 
was  afterward  expanded  into  the  chapters  in  the  Additions,  headed 
“A  Manchester  Home,”  p.  308,  and  “At  the  Manchester  Grammar 
School, ”  p.  313.] 

Note  7.  Page  20. 

[Lady  Carbery.  See  also  for  an  amplification  of  this  part  of  his 
experience  the  chapter  in  the  Additions,  headed  “  Elopement  from 
Manchester,”  p.  354.] 

Note  8.  Page  25. 

[The  summary  of  this  brief  paragraph  is  fully  extended  in  the 
chapter,  “  Wanderings  in  North  Wales,”  in  the  Additions,  p.  374.] 


*  “  Adequately  made  known :  ”  —  Precisely  this,  however,  was  impossible. 
No  feature  of  ancient  Pagan  life  has  more  entirely  escaped  notice  than  the 
extreme  rarity,  costliness,  and  circuitous  accessibility  of  the  more  powerful 
drugs,  especially  of  mineral  drugs  ;  and  of  drugs  requiring  elaborate  prepar- 
ttion,  or  requiring  much  manufacturing  skill.  When  the  process  of  obtain¬ 
ing  any  manufactured  drug  was  slow  and  intricate,  it  could  most  rarely  be 
called  for.  And  rarely  called  for,  why  should  it  be  produced  ?  By  looking 
tnto  the  histo)  and  times  of  Herod  th«  Great,  as  reported  by  Josephus,  the 
reader  will  gain  some  notion  of  the  my  tery  and  the  suspicion  surrounding 
11  attempts  at  importing  such  drugs  as  could  be  applied  to  murderous  pur 
eoesw  consequently  of  the  delay,  the  difficulty,  and  the  peril  in  forming  as; 
acqua  ntauce  with  opium. 


m 


NOTES. 


Note  9.  Page  25. 

[“  B — — ;  ”  —  Bangor.  The  Bishop  of  B - ,  is  the  Bishop  of  Baa> 

gor,  then  Dr.  Cleaver.] 

Note  10.  Page  29. 

(De  Quincey’s  wanderings  from  this  time  until  he  reached  London 
%tq  given  in  detail  in  the  chapter  in  Additions,  entitled,  “  From  Wale* 
k:  London,’ ’  p.  404.] 

Note  11.  Page  32. 

[The  means  on  which  De  Quincey  relied  for  sustaining  himself  ua 
London  are  given  in  Additions,  in  the  chapter,  “  The  Plans  laid  for 
London  Life,”  p.  427.] 


Note  12.  Page  35. 

[“  Mr. - — This  person,  under  the  name  of  Brown-Brunell  or 

Brunell-Brown  is  described  at  greater  length  in  the  chanter  of  the  Ad¬ 
ditions  last  cited.] 

Note  13.  Page  37. 

[“  In  a  well  Jcnown  part  of  London :  ”  —  De  Quincey  felt  himself  at 
liberty,  when  revising  the  Confessions,  to  point  out  the  exact  location^ 
“at  the  northwest  corner  of  Greek  Street,  being  the  house  on  tha* 
lide  the  street  nearest  to  Soho  Square.”] 

Note  14.  Page  37. 

[“  My  birthday  •  ”  —  De  Quincey  was  born  August  15,  1785.] 

Note  15.  Page  45. 

“  I  applied  to  a  Jew  named  D - :  ”  —  At  this  period  (autumn  of 

1856),  when  thirtA^-five  years  have  elapsed  since  the  first  publication  of 
these  memoirs,  reasons  of  delicacy  can  no  longer  claim  respect  for 
concealing  the  Jew’s  name,  or  at  least  the  name  which  he  adopted  in 
his  dealings  with  the  Gentiles.  I  say,  therefore,  without  scruple,  that 
the  name  was  Dell :  and  some  years  later  it  was  one  of  the  names  that 
came  before  the  House  of  Commons  in  connection  with  something  or 
other  (I  have  long  since  forgotten  what )  growing  out  of  the  parlia¬ 
mentary  movement  against  the  Duke  of  York,  in  reference  to  Mrs 
Clark,  &c.  Like  all  the  other  Jews  with  whom  I  have  had  negotia* 
dons,  he  was  frank  and  honorable  in  his ‘mode  of  conducting  bust 
ness.  What  he  promised,  he  performed ;  and  if  his  terms  were  high 
is  naturally  they  could  not  but  be,  to  cover  his  risks,  he  avowed  theuf 
5rom  the  first. 


ISOTKo 


m 


Note  16.  Page  46. 

[“Earl  of  —  — :  ”  —  Earl  of  Altamont.] 

Note  17.  Page  48. 

['*  Marquis  of - :  ”  — Marquis  of  Sligo.] 

Note  18.  Page  47. 

f  “  M - and  SI. :  —  Mayo  and  Sligo.] 

Note  19.  Page  52. 

“  A  murder  committed  on  or  near  Hounslow  Heath :  ”  —  Two  men, 
Bolloway  and  Haggerty,  were  long  afterwards  convicted,  upon  very 
questionable  evidence,  as  the  perpetrators  o-f  this  murder.  The  mails 
testimony  against  them  was  that  of  a  Newgate  turnkey,  who  had  im¬ 
perfectly  overheard  a  conversation  between  the  two  men.  The  cur« 
rent  impression  was  that  of  great  dissatisfaction  with  the  evident 
and  this  impression  was  strengthened  by  the  pamphlet  of  an  acute 
lawyer,  exposing  the  unsoundness  and  incoherency  of  the  statements 
relied  upon  by  the  court.  They  were  executed,  however,  in  the  teeth 
of  all  opposition.  And  as  it  happened  that  an  enormous  wreck  of  nfe 
occured  at  the  execution  (not  fewer,  I  believe,  than  sixty  persons  hav¬ 
ing  been  trampled  under  foot  by  the  unusual  pressure  of  some  brew¬ 
ers’  draymen  forcing  their  way  with  linked  arms  to  the  space  below 
the  drop),  this  tragedy  was  regarded  for  many  years  by  a  section  of 
the  London  mob  as  a  providential  judgment  upon  the  passive  metrop* 
olis. 

Note  20.  Page  52. 

[“  My  friend ,  Lord - :  ”  —  Lord  Altamont.] 

Note  21.  Page  54. 

[“  University  of - : ” —  Lord  Altamont  was  gone  to  Jesus  Col- 

tege,  Cambridge.] 

Note  22.  Page  54. 

[“  Earl  of  D - :  ”  —  Lord  Desert.  “  I  had  known  Lord  Desert,” 

says  De  Quincey  elsewhere,  “the  eldest  son  of  a  very  large  family,, 
iome  years  earlier,  when  bearing  the  title  of  Lord  Castlecuffe.  Cuffe 
was  the  family  name ,  and  I  believe  that  they  traced  their  descent 
vom  a  person  of  some  historic  interest  —  viz.,  that  Cuffe  who  was  sec¬ 
tary  to  the  unhappy  Earl  of  Essex  during  his  treasonable  emeutf 
igainst  the  government  of  Queen  Elizabeth.] 


NOTES 


m 

Note  23.  Pago  57. 

[“  Reconciliation  with  my  friends:  ”  — These  friends  were  his  guftP- 
Sian,  and  the  remote  part  of  England  to  which  he  went  was  th« 
Fr'ory,  near  Chester,  mentioned  on  p.  389.] 

Note  24.  Page  72. 

“  For  he  was  a  surgeon  and  had  himself  taken  opium  largely :  ”  —  Thil 
iargeon  it  was  who  first  made  me  aware  of  the  dangerous  variability 
in  opium  as  to  strength  under  the  shifting  proportions  of  its  combina¬ 
tion  with  alien  impurities.  Naturally,  as  a  man  professionally  alive 
k)  the  danger  of  creating  any  artificial  need  of  opium  beyond  what 
the  anguish  of  his  malady  at  any  rate  demanded,  trembling  every 
hour  on  behalf  of  his  poor  children,  lest,  by  any  indiscretion  of  hia 
own,  he  should  precipitate  the  crisis  of  his  disorder,  he  saw  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  reducing  the  daily  dose  to  a  minimum.  But  to  do  this  he  must 
first  obtain  the  means  of  measuring  the  quantities  of  opium;  not  the 
apparent  quantities  as  determined  by  weighing,  but  the  virtual  quan¬ 
tities  after  allowing  for  the  alloy  or  varying  amounts  of  impurity. 
This,  however,  was  a  visionary  problem.  To  allow  for  it  was  simply 
impossible.  The  problem,  therefore,  changed  its  character.  Not  to 
measure  the  impurities  was  the  object  ;  for,  whilst  entangled  with  the 
operative  and  efficient  parts  of  the  opium  they  could  not  be  measured. 
To  separate  and  eliminate  the  impure  (or  inert)  parts,  this  was  now 
the  object.  And  this  was  effected  finally  by  a  particular  mode  of  boil¬ 
ing  the  opium.  That  done,  the  residuum  became  equable  in  strength; 
and  the  daily  doses  could  be  nicely  adjusted.  About  18  grains  formed 
his  daily  ration  for  many  years.  This,  upon  the  common  hospital 
equation,  expresses  18  times  25  drops  of  laudanum-  But  since  25  is 
•-=  therefore  18  times  one  quarter  of  a  hundred  is  “  one  quarter 
of  1800,  and  that,  I  suppose,  is  450.  So  much  this  surgeon  averaged 
upon  each  day  for  about  twenty  years.  Then  suddenly  began  a 
fiercer  stage  of  anguish  from  his  disease.  But  then,  also,  the  fight 
was  finished,  and  the  victory  was  won.  All  duties  were  fulfilled  ;  his 
children  prosperously  launched  in  life;  and  death,  which  to  himseli 
was  becoming  daily  more  necessary  as  a  relief  from  torment,  now  fell 
ajuriously  upon  nobodv. 

Note  25.  Page  75. 

M  The  late  Duke  of - :  The  late  Duke  of  Norfolk.  My  author¬ 

ity  was  the  late  Sir  George  Beaumont,  an  old  familiar  acquaintance  ol 
fit  duke’s.  But  such  expressions  are  always  liable  to  grievous  mi» 


NOTES. 


593 


pppiication.  By  “  the  late  ”  duke,  Sir  George  meant  that  duke  once  so 
well  known  to  the  nation  as  the  partisan  friend  of  Fox,  Burke  Sheri¬ 
dan,  etc.,  at  the  era  of  the  great  French  Revolution,  in  1789-1793. 
Since  his  time,  I  believe  there  have  been  three  generations  of  ducal 
Howards  —  who  are  always  interesting  to  the  English  nation,  first, 
from  the  bloody  historic  traditions  surrounding  their  great  hcuse;  se©> 
ec  ily,  from  the  fact  of  their  being  at  the  head  of  the  British  Peerage, 

Note  26.  Page  75. 

“  Grassini:  ”  —  Thrilling  was  the  pleasure  with  which  almost  alwayi 
l  heard  this  angelic  Grassini.  Shivering  with  expectation  I  s&f, 
when  the  time  drew  near  for  her  golden  epiphany;  shivering  I  rose 
from  my  seat,  incapable  of  rest,  when  that  heavenly  and  harp-like 
voice  sang  its  own  victorious  welcome  in  its  prelusive  threttanelo  — 
threttcmelo.  This  is  the  beautiful  representative  echo  by  which  Aris¬ 
tophanes  expresses  the  sound  of  the  Grecian  phorminx,  or  of  some 
other  instrument,  which  conjecturally  has  been  shown  most  to  resem- 
bG  our  modern  European  harp.  In  the  case  of  ancient  Hebrew  in- 
I'niments  used  in  the  temple  service,  random  and  idle  must  be  all  the 
guesses  through  the  Greek  Septuagint  or  the  Latin  Vulgate  to  identify 
anv  one  of  them.  But  as  to  Grecian  instruments  the  case  is  different  ; 
a*  ways  there  is  a  remote  chance  of  digging  up  some  marble  sculpture 
o'  orchestral  appurtenances  and  properties.  Yet  all  things  change  ; 
this  same  Grassini,  whom  once  I  adored,  afterwards,  wThen  gorged 
with  English  gold,  went  off  to  Paris  ;  and  vrhen  I  heard  on  what  terms 
she  lived  with  a  man  so  unmagnanimous  as  Napoleon,  I  came  to  hate 
her.  Did  I  complain  of  any  man’s  hating  England,  or  teaching  a 
woman  to  hate  her  benefactress?  Not  at  all;  but  simply  of  his  adopt¬ 
ing  at  second  hand  the  malice  of  a  jealous  nation,  with  which  orig¬ 
inally  he  could  have  had  no  sincere  sympathy.  Hate  us,  if  you  please; 
but  not  sycophantishly,  by  way  of  paying  court  to  others. 

Note  27.  Page  79. 

“  Soot.”  In  the  large  capacious  chimneys  of  the  rustic  cottagea 
Oiroughout  the  Lake  district,  you  can  see  up  the  entire  cavity  from 
the  seat  which  you  occupy,  as  an  honored  visitor,  in  the  chimney 
loruer.  There  I  used  ^ften  to  hear  v though  not  to  see)  bees.  Their 
Hurmuring  was  audible,  though  their  bodily  forms  were  too  small  t* 
k  visible  at  that  altitude.  On  inquiry,  I  found  that  soot  (chiefly  from 
wood  and  peats)  was  useful  in  some  stage  of  their  wax  or  honey  anaa- 
tlm  tore. 


38 


NOTES. 


m 


Note  28.  Page  81. 

{/'  Ch'eat  town  of  L - :  ”  —  Liverpool  ] 

Note  29.  Page  86. 

“  Anastasias :  ”  —  The  reader  of  this  generation  will  marvel  at  theM 
repeated  references  to  “  Anastasius  ;  ”  it  is  now  an  almost  forgotten 
Dook,  so  vast  has  been  the  deluge  of  novel-writing  talent,  neallj  orig¬ 
inal  and  powerful,  which  has  overflowed  our  literature  duriDg  th« 
lapse  of  thirty-five  years  from  the  publication  of  these  Confessions. 
“Anastasius”  was  written  by  the  famous  and  opulent  Mr.  Hope; 
and  was  in  1821a  book  both  of  high  reputation  and  of  great  influents 
amongst  the  leading  circles  of  society. 

Note  30.  Page  92. 

“  A  seaport  about  forty  miles  distant :  ”  —  Between  the  seafaring  pop¬ 
ulations  on  the  coast  of  Lancashire,  and  the  corresponding  populations 
on  the  coast  of  Cumberland  (such  as  Ravenglass,  Whitehaven,  Work¬ 
ington,  Marvport,  etc.),  there  was  a  slender  current  of  interchange 
constantly  going  on,  and  especially  in  the  days  of  pressgangs  —  Ut 
part  by  sea,  but  in  part  also  by  land.  By  the  way,  I  may  mention, 
as  an  interesting  fact  which  I  discovered  from  an  almanac  and  itin 
erarj,  dated  about  the  middle  of  Queen  Elizabeth’s  reign  (say,  1579;, 
that  the  official  route  in  her  days  for  queen’s  messengers  to  the  nortn 
of  Ireland,  and  of  course  for  travellers  generally,  was  not  (as  now) 
through  Grasmere,  and  thence  by  St.  John’s  Yale,  Threlkeld  (for  the 
short  cut  by  Shoulthwaite  Moss  was  then  unknown),  Keswick,  Cock- 
ermouth,  and  Whitehaven.  Up  to  St.  Oswald’s  Church,  Gresmere  (so 
it  was  then  spelled,  in  deference  to  its  Danish  original),  the  route  lay 
as  at  present.  Thence  it  turned  round  the  lake  to  the  left,  crossed 
Hammerscar,  up  Little  Langdale,  across  Wrynose  to  Egremont.  and 
from  Egremont  to  Whitehaven. 

Note  31.  Page  93. 

[“  Beautiful  English  face  of  the  girl:  ”  —  For  a  further  reference  to 
this  girl,  who  was  Barbara  Lewthwaite,  made  famous  by  Wordsworth, 
*ee  the  chapter  in  the  Additions,  headed  “  Barbara  Lewthwaite,”  pag« 
437.] 

Note  32.  Page  96. 

“  Let  there  be  a  cottage  standing  in  a  valley :  ”  —  The  cottage  and  thf 
» alley  concerned  in  this  description  were  not  imaginary;  the  valley 
vas  the  lovely  one,  in  those  days ,  of  Grasmere;  and  the  cottage  wai 


NOTES. 


595 


Kcupied  for  more  than  twenty  years  by  myself,  as  immediate  snt>- 
tessor,  in  the  year  1809,  to  Wordsworth.  Looking  to  the  limitation 
here  laid  down  —  viz.,  in  those  days  —  the  reader  will  inquire,  in  what 
way  Time  can  have  affected  the  beauty  of  Grasmere.  Do- the  West¬ 
moreland  valle}rs  turn  gray  headed?  Oh,  reader!  this  is  a  painful 
memento  for  some  of  us !  Thirty  years  ago,  a  gang  of  Yandals  (name¬ 
less,  I  thank  Heaven,  to  me),  for  the  sake  of  building  a  mail-coach 
road  that  never  would  be  wanted,  carried,  at  a  cost  of  .£3,000  to  the 
defrauded  parish,  a  horrid  causeway  of  sheer  granite  masonry,  for 
three  quarters  of  a  mile,  right  through  the  loveliest  succession  of  secret 
forest  dells  and  shy  recesses  of  the  lake,  margined  by  unrivalled  ferns, 
amongst  which  was  the  Osmutida  regalis.  This  sequestered  angle  of 
Grasmere  is  described  by  Wordsworth,  as  it  unveiled  itself  on  a  Sep¬ 
tember  morning,  in  the  exquisite  poems  on  the  “  Naming  of  Places.” 
From  this  also  —  viz.,  this  spot  of  ground,  and  this  magnificent  crest 
(the  Osmunda)  —  was  suggested  that  unique  line  —  the  finest  inde¬ 
pendent  line  through  all  the  records  of  verse 

“  Or  lady  of  the  lake, 

Sole-sitting  by  the  shores  of  old  romance.” 

Rightly,  therefore,  did  I  introduce  this  limitation.  The  Grasmere  b&* 
fore  and  after  this  outrage  were  two  different  vales. 

Note  33.  Page  97. 

[“  As  Mr. - says:  ”]  —  Mr.  Anti-Slavery  Clarkson. 

Note  34.  Page  102. 

[The  section  numbered  2,  has  been  very  much  amplified  in  the  re¬ 
vision  and  is  now  given  at  page  455,  under  the  title  “  Notes  on  the 
Use  of  Opium.”] 

Note  35.  Page  104. 

[“ - reads  vilely :  ”  —  John  Kemble  is  referred  to,  and  afterward 

Mrs.  Siddons.] 

Note  36.  Page  104. 

[“  fP.” —  Wordsworth.] 

Note  37.  Page  112. 

41  The  whole  and  every  part :  ”  —  The  heroine  of  this  remarkable 
ease  was  a  girl  about  nine  years  old :  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
&e  locked  down  as  far  within  the  crater  of  death  —  that  awful  vol- 
•Ano  —  as  any  human  being  ever  can  have  done  that  has  lived  to  draw 
and  to  report  her  experience.  Not  less  than  ninety  years  du* 


596 


NOTES. 


she  survive  this  memorable  escape;  and  I  may  describe  her  as  iu  &H 
respects  a  woman  of  remarkable  and  interesting  qualities.  Sbe  en 
joyed,  throughout  her  long  life,  as  the  reader  will  readily  infer,  serene 
and  cloudless  health;  had  a  masculine  understanding;  reverenced 
truth  not  less  than  did  the  Evangelists ;  and  led  a  life  of  saintly  devo¬ 
tion,  such  as  might  have  glorified  “  Ililarion  or  Paul."  [The  words 
in  italic  are  Ariosto’s.]  I  mention  these  traits  as  characterize/*  he? 
in  a  memorable  extent,  that  the  reader  may  not  suppose  himself  rely¬ 
ing  upon  a  dealer  in  exaggerations,  upon  a  credulous  enthusiast,  o? 
upon  a  careless  wielder  of  language.  Forty-five  years  had  intervened 
between  the  first  time  and  the  last  time  of  her  telling  me  this  anec¬ 
dote,  and  not  one  iota  had  shifted  its  ground  amongst  the  incidents, 
nor  had  any  the  most  trivial  of  the  circumstantiations  suffered 
change.  The  scene  of  the  accident  was  the  least  of  valleys,  what  the 
Greeks  of  old  would  have  called  an  ay*os,  and  we  English  should 
properly  call  a  dell.  Human  tenant  it  had  none:  even  at  noonday  it 
was  a  solitude  ;  and  would  oftentimes  have  been  a  silent  solitude  but 
for  the  brawling  of  a  brook  —  not  broad,  but  occasionally  deep  — 
which  ran  along  the  base  of  the  little  hills.  Into  this  brook,  probably 
into  one  of  its  dangerous  pools,  the  child  fell  :  and,  according  to  the 
ordinary  chances,  she  could  have  had  but  a  slender  prospect  indeed  of 
any  deliverance ,  for,  although  a  dwelling-house  was  close  by,  it  was 
shut  out  from  view  by  the  undulations  of  the  ground.  How  long  the 
child  lay  in  the  water,  was  probably  never  inquired  earnestly  until  the 
answer  had  become  irrecoverable:  for  a  servant,  to  whose  care  the 
child  was  then  confided,  had  a  natural  interest  in  suppressing  the 
whole  case.  From  the  child’s  own  account,  it  should  seem  that 
asphyxia  must  have  announced  its  commencement.  A  process  of 
Btruggle  and  deadly  suffocation  was  passed  through  half  consciously. 
This  process  terminated  by  a  sudden  blow  apparently  on  or  in  the 
brain,  after  which  there  was  no  pain  or  conflict;  but  in  an  instant  sue" 
eeeded  a  dazzling  rush  of  light;  immediately  after  which  came  the 
Bolemn  apocalypse  of  the  entire  past  life.  Meantime,  the  child’s  dis¬ 
appearance  in  the  water  had  happily  been  witnessed  by  a  farmer  who 
rented  some  fields  in  this  little  solitude,  and  by  a  rare  accident  waa 
riding  through  them  at  the  moment.  Not  being  very  well  mounted, 
he  was  retarded  by  the  hedges  and  other  fences  in  making  his  way 
uown  to  the  water  ;  some  time  was  thus  lost;  but  once  at  the  spot,  he 
.eaped  in,  booted  and  spurred,  and  succeeded  in  delivering  one  thaf 
must  have  been  as  nearly  counted  amongst  the  populations  of  thi 
jravo  as  perhaps  the  laws  of  the  shadowy  world  can  suffer  to  return 


NOTES. 


597 


Note  38.  Page  113. 

*  August ,  1642  :  ”  —  I  think  (but  at  the  moment  have  no  moans  of 
rerifying  my  conjecture)  that  this  day  was  the  24th  of  August.  On 
or  about  that  day  Charles  raised  the  royal  standard  at  Nottingham; 
which,  onjinously  enough  (considering  the  strength  of  such  supersti¬ 
tions  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and,  amongst  the  generations  of  that 
century,  more  especially  in  this  particular  generation  of  the  Parliament¬ 
ary  War),  was  blown  down  during  the  succeeding  night.  Let  ina  re¬ 
mark,  in  passing,  that  no  falsehood  can  virtually  be  greater  or  mori* 
malicious,  than  that  which  imputes  to  Archbishop  Laud  a  special  oi. 
exceptional  faith  in  such  mute  warnings. 

Note  39.  Page  115. 

“ From  a  great  modern  jooet:”  —  What  poet?  It  was  Words¬ 
worth;  and  why  did  I  not  formally  name  him  ?  This  throws  a  light 
backwards  upon  the  strange  history  of  Wordsworth’s  reputation.  The 
year  in  which  I  wrote  and  published  these  Confessions  was  1821 ;  ana 
at  that  time  the  name  of  Wordsworth,  though  beginning  to  emerge 
from  the  dark  cloud  of  scorn  and  contumely  which  had  hitherto  over¬ 
shadowed  it,  was  yet  most  imperfectly  established.  Not  until  ten 
years  later  was  his  greatness  cheerfully  and  generally  acknowledged. 
I,  therefore,  as  the  very  earliest  (without  one  exception)  of  all  who 
came  forward,  in  the  beginning  of  his  career,  to  honor  and  welcome 
him,  shrank  with  disgust  from  making  any  sentence  of  mine  the 
occasion  for  an  explosion  of  vulgar  malice  against  him.  But  the 
grandeur  of  the  passage  here  cited  inevitably  spoke  for  itself ;  and 
he  that  would  have  been  most  scornful  on  hearing  the  name  of  the 
poet  coupled  with  this  epithet  of  “great,”  could  not  but  find  hia 
malice  intercepted,  and  himself  cheated  into  cordial  admiration,  by 
tha  splendor  of  the  verses. 

Note  40.  Page  127. 

“  Jeremy  Taylor :” — In  all  former  editions,  I  had  ascribed  this 
sentiment  to  Jeremy  Taylcr.  On  a  close  search,  however,  wishing 
»o  verify  the  quotation,  it  appeared  that  I  had  been  mistaken. 
Something  very  like  it  occurs  more  than  once  in  the  bishop’s  volu¬ 
minous  writings  ;  but  the  exact  passage  moving  in  my  mind  had  evi- 
tently  been  this  which,  follows,  from  Lord  Bac<  n’s  “  Essay  on 
ileath;  ”  “  It  is  as  natural  to  die  as  to  be  bom;  and  to  a  little  infant 

yerhfp?  -be  one  Is  as  painful  as  the  other.” 


598 


NOTES. 


Note  41.  Page  278. 

[“  A - i :  "  — Altamont.] 

Note  42.  Page  285. 

(  ‘  My  Guardians  :  ”  — See  page  18,  and  Note  5.  ] 

Note  43.  Page  308. 

[4<  A  Manchester  Home :  ”  —  See  page  20,  and  Note  8.] 

Note  44.  Page  354. 

[“  Elopement  from  Manchester :  ”  —  See  page  20,  and  Note  7  } 

Note  45.  Page  374. 

[“  Wanderings  in  North  Wales:  ”  —  See  page  25,  and  Note  3  ] 

Note  46.  Page  404. 

[“  From  Wales  to  London  :  ”  —  See  page  2C,  and  Note  10.] 

Note  47.  Page  427. 

[“  The  Plans  laid  for  London  Life:  ”  —  See  page  32,  and  Note  11* 

Note  48.  Page  437. 

(“  Barbara  Lewthwaite :  ”  —  See  page  93,  and  Note  31.] 

Note  49.  Page  455. 

[“ Notes  on  the  use  of  Opium:"  —  See  page  102,  and  Note  34.] 

Note  50.  Page  480. 

“ Jacob  Boehmen :" — We  ourselves  had  the  honor  of  presenting  t® 
Mr.  Coleridge  Law’s  English  version  of  Jacob —  a  set  of  huge  quar¬ 
tos.  Some  months  afterwards  we  saw  this  work  lying  open,  and  on® 
volume  at  least  overflowing,  in  parts,  with  the  commentaries  and  the 
corollaries  of  Coleridge.  Whither  has  this  work,  and  so  many  others 
swathed  about  with  Coleridge’s  manuscript  notes,  vanished  from  the 
world  ? 

Note  51.  Page  482. 

“  Qtialiti.es  of  his  horse:" — One  fact,  tolerably  notorious,  should 
have  whispered  to  Mr.  Gillman  that  all  anecdotes  which  presuppose 
for  their  basis  any  equestrian  skill  or  habits  in  Coleridge  rest  upon 
moonshine.  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge’s  first  attempts  at  horseman¬ 
ship  were  pretty  nearly  his  last.  What  motive  swayed  the  judgment 
sr  what  stormy  impulse  drove  the  passionate  despair  of  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge  into  quitting  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  was  never  clearly  o 


NOTES. 


599 


eertainly  made  known  to  the  very  nearest  of  his  friends;  which  lends 
further  probability  to  a  rumor,  already  in  itself  probable  enough, 
that  this  motive  which  led,  or  this  impulse  which  drove,  the  unhappy 
man  into  headlong  acts  of  desperation,  was  —  the  reader  will  gueis 
for  himself,  though  ten  miles  distant  —  a  woman.  In  fact,  most  of  us 
play  the  fool  at  least  once  in  our  life-career;  and  the  criminal  cause  of 
our  doing  so  is  pretty  well  ascertained  by  this  time  in  all  cases  to  be  a 
woman.  Coleridge  was  hopelessly  dismissed  by  his  proud,  disdainful 
goddess,  although  really  she  might  have  gone  farther  and  farce  worse. 
I  am  able,  by  female  aid,  to  communicate  a  pretty  close  description  cf 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  as  he  was  in  the  year  1796.  In  stature,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  severe  measurement  taken  down  in  the  studio  of  a  very 
distinguished  artist,  he  was  exactly  5  feet  10  inches  in  height ;  with  a 
olooming  and  healthy  complexion ;  beautiful  and  luxuriant  hair,  fall- 
»ng  in  natural  curls  over  his  shoulders;  and,  as  a  lady  (the  successor 
of  Hannah  More  in  her  most  lucrative  boarding-school)  said  to  me 
about  the  year  of  Waterloo,  “  simply  the  most  perfect  realization  of  a 
pastoral  Strephon  that  in  all  her  life  she  had  looked  upon.”  Strephon 
was  the  romantic  name  that  survived  from  her  rosy  days  of  sweet 
seventeen;  at  present,  Strephon,  as  well  as  Chloe,  are  at  a  discount, 
but  what  she  meant  was  an  Adonis.  By  reason  of  reading  too  much 
Kant  and  Schelling,  he  grew  fat  and  corpulent  towards  Waterloo* 
but  he  was  then  slender  and  agile  as  an  antelope. 

Note  52.  Page  485. 

s< Arbitrary  limitation:  ”  — Malthus  would  have  rejoined  by  saying 
that  the  flower-pot  limitation  was  the  actual  limitation  of  Nature  in  our 
present  circumstances.  In  America  it  is  otherwise,  he  would  say  ; 
but  England  is  the  very  flower  pot  you  suppose;  she  is  a  flower  pot 
which  cannot  be  multiplied,  and  cannot  even  be  enlarged.  Very  well; 
so  be  it ;  (which  we  say  in  order  to  waive  irrelevant  disputes;)  but  then 
the  true  inference  will  be,  not  that  vegetable  increase  proceeds  under  a 
different  law  from  that  which  governs  animal  increase,  but  that, 
through  an  accident  of  position,  the  experiment  cannot  be  tried  in 
England.  Surely  the  levers  of  Archimedes,  with  submission  to  Sir 
Edward  B.  Lytton,  were  not  the  less  levers  because  he  wanted  the 
locum  standi.  It  io  proper,  by  the  way,  that  we  should  inform  the 
reader  of  this  generation  where  to  lo^k  for  Coleridge’s  skirmishings 
with  Malthus.  They  are  to  be  found  cniefly  in  the  late  Mr.  William 
Kazlitt’s  work  on  that  subject —  a  work  which  Coleridge  so  far  claimed 
rb  to  assert  that  it  had  been  substantially  uade  up  from  his  own  com 
ren&tioo. 


soo 


NOTES. 


Note  53.  Pag*  *95. 

Vide ,  in  particular,  for  the  most  exquisite  exhibition  of  pigheaded* 
ness  that  the  world  can  furnish,  his  perverse  evidence  on  the  once  f* 
mous  case  at  the  Warwick  assizes,  of  Captain  Donelan  for  poisoning 
His  brother-in-law,  Sir  Theodosius  Boughton. 

Note  54.  Page  499. 

“  Mrs.  Brownrigg —  Draco  and  the  Bishop  belong  to  history,  — 
the  first  as  bloody  lawgiver  in  the  days  of  the  elder  Athens,  the 
Bishop  as  fiery  disciplinarian  to  weak,  relapsing  perverts  [such  is  the 
modern  slang] :  sneaking  perverts  like  myself  and  my  ever-honored 
reader,  who  would  be  very  willing  to  give  the  Bishop  a  kick  in  the 
dark,  but  would  find  ourselves  too  much  of  cowards  to  stand  to  it 
when  the  candles  were  brought.  These  men  are  well  known  ;  but 
who  is  Mrs.  Brownrigg  V  The  reader  would  not  have  asked  had  he 
lived  in  the  days  of  the  Anti-Jacobin,  who  describes  Mrs.  Brownrigg 
as  the  woman 

“  who  whipp'd  two  female  ’prentices  to  death, 

And  hid  them  in  the  coal-hole.” 

Note  55.  Page  502. 

u  Hopped  de  twig :  ”  —  1st  ebenjetzt  gestorben  was  his  German  idea, 
which  he  thus  rendered  in  classical  English. 

Note  56.  Page  504. 

It  was  printed  at  the  end  of  Aristotle’s  Poetics ,  which  Dr.  Cook 
edited. 

Note  57.  Page  504. 

Xpucrerj?.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  epithet  has  been  everywhere 
assigned  to  Awpa  tvxtjs,  the  gifts  of  Fortune,  which  in  this  place 

is  meant  to  indicate  riches,  corresponding  to  Gray’s  “All  that  Wealth 
e’er  gave,”  might  seem  at  first  sight  to  justify  this  allocation  of  the 
epithet  golden.  But  on  this  way  of  understanding  the  appropriation, 
we  are  met  by  a  prosaic  and  purely  mechanic  fact —  the  gifts  of  golden 
Fortune,  as  the  giver  of  golden  coins  —  Persian  darics  or  English 
guineas.  Meantime  this  epithet  has  an  old  traditional  consecration 
§o  Venus,  and  in  such  an  application  springs  upward  like  a  pyramid 
&f  fire  into  a  far  more  illimitable  and  imaginative  value.  A  truth 
which  Shakespeare  caught  at  once  by  a  subtle  divination  of  his  own 
anfathomable  sensibility.  Accordingly,  without  needing  any  Gretna* 
guidance  or  model,  how  profound  is  the  effect  of  that  line:  — 

WTh*t  Lb  t  th&t  takes  from  thee  thy  golden  sleep? 


NOTES. 


601 


Note  58.  Page  507. 

[“  S  Letter  of  Coleridge's :  ”  —  The  passage  referred  to  is  as  follows  * 

You  will  never  hear  anything  but  truth  from  me  ;  prior  habits 
Tender  it  out  of  my  power  to  tell  an  untruth,  but  unless  carefully  ot> 
served,  I  dare  not  promise  that  I  should  not,  with  regard  to  this  de¬ 
tested  poison,  be  capable  of  acting  one.  No  sixty  hours  have  yei 
pnssed  without  my  having  taken  laudanum,  though  for  the  last  week 
comparatively  trifling  doses.  I  have  full  belief  that  your  anxiety  need 
not  be  extended  beyond  the  first  week,  and  for  the  first  week,  I  shall 
not,  I  must  not  be  permitted  to  leave  your  house,  unless  with  you.” 
Gillman’s  “Life  of  Coleridge,”  vol.  i.,  page  275.  I  think  that  Ds 
Quincey  hardly  treats  this  passage  fairl}r  when  he  assumes  that  Coler¬ 
idge  regards  a  week  as  sufficient  for  weaning  one’s  self  from  opium.] 

Note  59.  Page  513. 

[“Some  intemperate  passages :” — The  following  are  the  passages 
ireferred  to:  “  God  knows  that  from  that  moment  I  was  the  victim  of 
pain  and  terror,  nor  had  I  at  any  time  taken  the  flattering  poison  as 
a  stimulus,  or  for  any  craving  after  pleasurable  sensations.  I  needed 
none;  and  oh!  with  what  unutterable  sorrow  did  I  read  the  ‘  Confes¬ 
sions  of  an  Opium  Eater,’  in  which  the  writer  with  morbid  vanity, 
makes  a  boast  of  what  was  my  misfortune,  for  he  had  been  faithfully 
and  with  an  agony  of  zeal  warned  of  the  gulf,  and  yet  willingly 
Btruck  into  the  current  ....  Oh,  may  the  God  to  whom  I  look  for 
mercy  through  Christ,  show  mercy  on  the  author  of  the  ‘  Confessions 
of  an  Opium  Eater,’  if  as  I  have  too  strong  reason  to  believe,  his  book 
has  been  the  occasion  of  seducing  others  into  this  withering  vice 
through  wantonness.  From  this  aggravation  I  have,  I  humbly  trust, 
->een  free,  as  far  as  acts  of  my  free  will  and  intention  are  concerned ; 
t-wen  to  the  author  of  that  work  I  pleaded  with  flowing  tears,  and  with 
Rn  agony  of  fore  warning.  He  utterly  denied  it,  but  I  fear  that  I  had 
then  even  to  deter  perhaps  not  to  forewarn.”  Gillman’s  “Life  of 
Ckileridge,”  vol.  i.,  pp.  247,  248.  250. 

As  further  illustrative  of  this  point  at  issue  between  Coleridge  and 
De  Quincey,  we  give  here  a  passage  bearing  upon  it,  inserted  at  the 
opening  of  the  new  edition  of  the  Confessions.]  Coleridge  was 
4oubly  in  error  when  he  allowed  _imself  to  aim  most  unfriendly  blows 
fct  my  supposed  voluptuousness  in  the  use  of  opium;  in  error  as  to  a 
principle,  and  in  error  as  to  a  fact.  A  letter  of  his,  which  T  will  nope 
!hat  he  did  not  design  to  have  pubhshed,  but  wnich,  however,  has  bees 
Published,  points  th  \  attention  of  nis  correspondent  to  a  broad  difr 


£02 


NOTES. 


linction  separating  my  case  as  an  opium-eater  from  his  ow  n ;  he,  I» 
seems,  had  fallen  excusably  (because  unavoidably)  into  this  habit  o! 
eating  opium  —  as  the  one  sole  therapeutic  resource  available  against 
his  particular  malady;  but  I,  wretch  that  I  am,  being  so  notoriously 
charmed  by  fairies  against  pain,  must  have  resorted  to  opium  in  thfi 
abominable  character  of  an  adventurous  voluptuary,  angling  in  all 
streams  for  variety  of  pleasures.  Coleridge  is  wrong  to  the  whole  ex¬ 
tent  of  what  Avas  possible  ;  wrong  in  his  fact,  wrong  in  his  doctrine 
if.  his  little  fact,  and  his  big  doctrine.  I  did  not  do  the  thing  which 
he  charges  upon  me;  and  if  I  had  done  it,  this  would  not  convict  me 
as  a  citizen  of  Sybaris  or  Daphne.  There  never  was  a  distinction 
more  groundless  and  visionary  than  that  which  it  has  pleased  him  to 
draw  between  my  motives  and  his  own  ;  nor  could  Coleridge  have 
possibly  owed  this  mis-statement  to  any  false  information  ;  since  no 
man,  surely,  on  a  question  of  my  own  private  experience,  could  have 
pretended  to  be  better  informed  than  myself.  Or,  if  there  really  is 
Euch  a  person,  perhaps  he  will  not  think  it  too  much  trouble  to  re¬ 
write  these  Confessions  from  first  to  last,  correcting  their  innumerable 
faults ;  and,  as  it  happens  that  some  parts  of  the  unpublished  sections 
for  the  present  are  missing,  would  he  kindly  restore  them  —  brighten¬ 
ing  the  colors  that  may  have  faded,  rekindling  the  inspiration  that 
may  have  drooped  ;  filling  up  all  those  chasms,  which  else  are  likely 
to  remain  as  permanent  disfigurations  of  my  little  work  ?  Meantime 
the  reader,  who  takes  any  interest  in  such  a  question,  will  find  that  I 
myself  (upon  such  a  theme  not  simply  the  best,  but  surely  the  sole 
authority)  have,  without  a  shadow  of  variation,  always  given  a  dif¬ 
ferent  account  of  the  matter.  Most  truly  I  have  told  the  reader,  that 
not  any  search  after  pleasure,  but  mere  extremity  of  pain  from  rheu¬ 
matic  toothache  —  this  and  nothing  else  it  was  that  first  drove  ms  into 
the  use  of  opium.  Coleridge’s  bodily  affliction  was  simple  rheuma- 
fcism.  Mine,  which  intermittingly  raged  for  ten  years,  was  rheumatism 
in  the  face  combined  with  toothache.  This  I  had  inherited  from  my 
father;  or  inherited  (I  should  rather  say)  from  my  own  desperate  ig¬ 
norance  ;  since  a  trifling  dose  of  colocynth,  or  of  any  similar  medicine, 
taken  three  times  a  week,  would  more  certainly  than  opium  have  de¬ 
livered  me  from  that  terrific  curse.*  In  this  ignorance,  however. 


*“  That  terrific  curse:  ”  —  Two  things  blunt  the  general  sense  of  horror 
which  would  else  connect  itself  with  toothache  —  viz.,  first,  its  enormous 
diffusion  ;  hardly  a  household  in  Europe  being  clear  of  it,  each  in  turn  hav 
la*  some  one  chamber  intermittingly  echoing  the  groans  extorted  by  thS 
rruol  torture  There  —  via.,  in  its  ubiquity  —  lies  one  cause  of  its  slight  ?*' 


NOTES. 


603 


rhich  misled  me  into  making  war  upon  toothache  when  ripened  and 
Branifesting  itself  in  effects  of  pain,  rather  than  upon  its  germs  ana 
gathering  causes,  I  did  but  follow  the  rest  of  the  world.  To  intercept 
the  evil  whilst  yet  in  elementary  stages  of  formation,  was  the  true 
policy:  whereas  I  in  my  blindness  sougnt  only  for  some  mitigation  to 
the  evil  when  already  formed,  and  past  all  reach  of  interception.  Tn 
this  stage  of  the  suffering,  formed  and  perfect,  I  was  thrown  passively 
upon  chance  advice,  and  therefore,  by  a  natural  consequence,  upon 
opium  —  that  being  the  one  sole  anodyne  that  is  almost  notoriously 
such,  and  which  in  that  great  function  is  universally  appreciated. 

Coleridge,  therefore,  and  myself,  as  regards  our  baptismal  initia¬ 
tion  into  the  use  of  that  mighty  drug,  occupy  the  very  same  position, 
We  are  embarked  in  the  self-same  boat;  nor  is  it  within  the  compass 
even  of  angelic  hair-splitting,  to  show  that  the  dark  shadow  thrown  by 
our  several  trespasses  in  this  field,  mine  and  his,  had  by  so  much  as 
a  pin’s  point  any  assignable  difference.  Trespass  against  trespass  (if 
any  trespass  there  were)  —  shadow  against  shadow  (if  any  shadow 
were  really  thrown  by  this  trespass  over  the  snowy  disk  of  pure  ascetic 
morality),  in  any  case,  that  act  in  either  of  us  would  read  into  the 
same  meaning,  would  count  up  as  a  debt  into  the  same  value,  would 
measure  as  a  delinquency  into  the  same  burden  of  responsibility. 
And  vainly,  indeed,  does  Coleridge  attempt  to  differentiate  two  cases 
which  ran  into  absolute  identity,  differing  only  as  rheumatism  differs 
from  toothache.  Amongst  the  admirers  of  Coleridge,  I  at  all  times 
fctood  in  the  foremost  rank ;  and  the  more  was  my  astonishment  at 
oeing  summoned  so  often  to  witness  his  carelessness  in  the  manage- 


uation.  A  second  cause  is  found  in  its  immunity  from  danger.  This  latter 
ground  of  undervaluation  is  noticed  in  a  saying  asci-ibed  (but  on  what  authori¬ 
ty  I  know  not)  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney  —  viz.,  that  supposing  toothache  liable  in 
ver  so  small  a  proportion  of  its  cases  to  a  fatal  issue,  it  would  be  generally 
i  tanked  as  the  most  dreadful  amongst  human  maladies  ;  "whereas  the  certainty 
that  it  will  in  no  extremity  lead  to  death,  and  the  knowledge  that  in  the  very 
nidst  of  its  storms  sudden  changes  may  be  looked  for,  bringing  long  halcyon 
»»lms,  have  an  unfair  effect  in  lowering  the  appreciation  of  this  malady  con- 
lidered  as  a  trial  of  fortitude  and  patience.  No  stronger  expression  of  it3  in¬ 
tensity  and  scorching  fierceness  can  be  imagined  than  this  fact  —  that,  withia 
yiy  private  knowledge,  two  persons  who  had  suffered  alike  under  toothache 
»nd  cancer,  have  pronounced  the  former  to  be,  on  the  scale  si,  torture,  by 
Uany  degrees  the  worse.  In  both,  there  are  at  times  what  surgeons  call 
‘lancinating”  pangs  —  keen,  glancing,  arrowy  radiations  of  anguish;  and 
ipot  these  the  basis  of  comparison  was  rested  —  paroxysm  against  paroxysoi 
-  with  the  result  that  I  have  stated, 


504 


SOTES. 


Blent  of  controversial  questions,  and  his  demoniac  inaccuracy  in  til 
statement  of  facts.  The  more  also  was  my  sense  of  Coleridge’a  wan 
ton  injustice  in  relation  to  myself  individually.  Coleridge's  gross 
mis-statement  of  facts,  in  regard  to  our  several  opium  experiences, 
had  its  origin,  sometimes  in  flighty  reading,  sometimes  in  partial  and 
incoherent  reading,  sometimes  in  subsequent  forgetfulness:  and  any 
one  of  these  lax  habits  (it  will  occur  to  the  reader)  is  a  venial  infir¬ 
mity.  Certainly  it  is;  but  surely  not  venial,  when  it  is  allowed  to 
operate  disadvantageous^  upon  the  character  for  self-control  of  a 
brother,  who  had  never  spoken  of  him  but  in  the  spirit  of  enthusiastic 
admiration  ;  of  that  admiration  which  his  exquisite  works  so  amply 
challenge.  Imagine  the  case  that  I  really  had  done  something  wrong, 
still  it  would  have  been  ungenerous  —  me  it  would  have  saddened,  I 
confess,  to  see  Coleridge  rushing  forward  with  a  public  denunciation 
of  my  fault:  “  Know  all  men  by  these  presents,  that  I,  S.  T.  C.,  a 
noticeable  man  with  large  gray  eyes*  am  a  licensed  opium-eater, 
whereas  this  other  man  is  a  buccaneer,  a  pirate,  a  flibustier,f  and  can 
have  none  but  a  forged  license  in  his  disreputable  pocket.  In  the  name 
of  Virtue  arrest  him!  ”  But  the  truth  is,  that  inaccuracy  as  to  facta 
and  citations  from  books  was  in  Coleridge  a  mere  necessity  of  nature. 
Not  three  days  ago,  in  reading  a  short  comment  of  the  late  Archdea¬ 
con  Hare  (“  Guesses  at  Truth  ”)  upon  a  bold  speculation  of  Coleridge’s 
(utterly  baseless)  with  respect  to  the  machinery  of  Etonian  Latin 
verses,  I  found  my  old  feelings  upon  this  subject  refreshed  by  an  in¬ 
stance  that  is  irresistibly  comic,  since  everything  that  Coleridge  had 
relied  upon  as  a  citation  from  a  book  in  support  of  his  own  hypothesis, 
turns  out  to  be  a  pure  fabrication  of  his  own  dreams;  though,  doubt¬ 
less  (which  indeed  it  is  that  constitutes  the  characteristic  interest  of 
the  case),  without  a  suspicion  on  his  part  of  hi3  own  furious  romanc¬ 
ing.  The  archdeacon’s  good-natured  smile  upon  that  Etonian  case 
naturally  reminded  me  of  the  case  now  before  us,  with  regard  to  the 
history  of  our  separate  careers  as  opium-eaters.  Upon  which  case  I 
need  say  no  more,  as  by  this  time  the  reader  is  aware  that  Coleridge’i 

*  See  Wordsworth's  exquisite  picture  of  S.  T.  C.  and  himself  as  occasional 
denizens  in  the  “  Castle  of  Indolence.” 

t  This  word  —  in  common  use,  and  so  spelled  as  I  spell  it,  amongst  tha 
grand  old  French  and  English  buccaneers  contemporary  with  our  own  admi¬ 
rable  Dampier,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  —  has  recently  bee» 
revived  in  the  journals  of  the  United  States,  with  a  view  to  the  special  case 
Cuba,  but  (for  what  reason  I  know  not)  is  now  written  always  as  jtfWfbust 
ws.  Meantime,  written  in  whatsoever  way,  it  is  understood  to  be  a  Franco 
tp&nlsb  corruption  of  the  English  word  freebooter. 


NOTES. 


m 


tnt»re  statement  upon  that  subject  is  perfect  moonshine,  and,  like  the 
Sculptured  imagery  of  -the  pendulous  lamp  in  “  Christabel,” 

“  All  carved  from  the  carver’s  brain.” 

rbis  case,  therefore,  might  now  be  counted  on  as  disposed  of;  and 
what  sport  it  could  yield  might  reasonably  be  thought  exhausted. 
Meantime,  on  consideration,  another  and  much  deeper  oversight  o 
Coleridge’s  becomes  apparent;  and  as  this  connects  itself  with  an  as¬ 
pect  of  the  case  that  furnishes  the  foundation  to  the  whole  of  these 
ensuing  Confessions,  it  cannot  altogether  be  neglected.  Any  attentive 
reader,  after  a  few  moments’  reflection,  will  perceive  that,  whatever 
may  have  been  the  casual  occasion  of  mine  or  Coleridge’s  opium-eat¬ 
ing,  this  could  not  have  been  the  permanent  ground  of  opium-eating; 
because  neither  rheumatism  nor  toothache  is  any  abiding  affection  of 
the  system.  Both  are  intermittent  maladies,  and  not  at  all  capable  of 
accounting  for  a  permanent  habit  of  opium-eating.  Some  months  are 
requisite  to  found  that.  Making  allowance  for  constitutional  differ¬ 
ences,  I  should  say  that  in  less  than  120  days  no  habit  of  opium-eating 
could  be  formed  strong  enough  to  call  for  any  extraordinary  self-con¬ 
quest  in  denouncing  it,  and  even  suddenly  renouncing  it.  On  Satur¬ 
day  you  are  an  opium-eater,  on  Sunday  no  longer  such.  What  then 
was  it,  after  all,  that  made  Coleridge  a  slave  to  opium,  and  a  slave  that 
could  not  break  his  chain  ?  He  fancies,  in  his  headlong  carelessness, 
that  he  has  accounted  for  this  habit  and  this  slavery ;  and  in  the  mean¬ 
time  he  has  accounted  for  nothing  at  all  about  which  any  question  has 
arisen.  Rheumatism,  he  says,  drove  him  to  opium.  Very  well;  but 
with  proper  medical  treatment  the  rheumatism  would  soon  have 
ceased ;  or  even  without  medical  treatment,  under  the  ordinary  oscil¬ 
lations  of  natural  causes.  And  when  the  pain  ceased,  then  the  opium 
ghould  have  ceased.  Why  Aid  it  not?  Because  Coleridge  had  come 
to  taste  the  genial  pleasure  of  opium  ;  and  thus  the  very  impeachment, 
which  he  fancied  himself  in  some  mysterious  way  to  have  evaded, 
recoils  upon  him  in  undiminished  force.  The  rheumatic  attack  would 
have  retired  before  the  habit  could  have  had  time  to  form  itself.  Or 
.rppose  that  I  underrate  the  strength  of  the  possible  habit  —  this  tells 
t  quail}'  in  my  favor  ;  and  Coleridge  was  not  entitled  to  forget  in  my 
uase  a  plea  remembered  in  his  own.  It  is  really  memorable  in  the  an¬ 
nals  of  human  self-deceptions,  that  Coleridge  could  have  held  sucU 
anguage  in  the  face  of  such  facts,  i,  boasting  not  at  all  of  my  self- 
onquests,  and  owning  no  morai  argument  against  the  free  use  oi 
tpium,  nevertheless  on  mere  prudential  motives  break  through  the 
►assalage  more  than  once,  and  by  efforts  which  I  have  recorded  as 


606 


NOTES 


(nodes  of  transcendent  suffering.  Coleridge,  professii.g  to  believe 
(without  reason  assigned)  that  opium-eating  is  criminal,  and  in  sonw 
mysterious  sense  more  criminal  than  wine-drinking  or  porter-drinking, 
saving,  therefore,  the  strongest  moral  motive  for  abstaining  fiom  it, 
yet  suffers  himself  to  fall  into  a  captivity  to  this  same  wicked  cptum, 
deadlier  than  was  ever  heard  of,  and  under  no  coercion  whatever  th*$ 
he  has  anywhere  explained  to  us.  A  slave  he  was  to  this  potent  drug 
not  less  abject  than  Caliban  to  Prospero  —  his  detested  and  yet  des¬ 
potic  master.  Like  Caliban,  he  frets  his  very  heart-strings  against  the 
rivets  of  his  chain.  Still,  at  intervals  through  the  gloomy  vigils  of 
his  prison,  you  hear  muttered  growls  of  impotent  rautineering  swelling 
upon  the  breeze  :  — 

“  Irasque  leonum 
Yincla  recusantum  ” — 

recusantum,  it  is  true,  still  refusing  yet  still  accepting,  protesting  for¬ 
ever  against  the  fierce,  overmastering  curb-chain,  yet  forever  submit¬ 
ting  to  receive  it  into  the  mouth.  It  is  notorious  that  in  Bristol  (to 
that  I  can  speak  myself,  but  probably  in  many  other  places)  he  went 
bo  far  as  to  hire  men  —  porters,  hackney-coachmen,  and  others  —  to 
oppose  bv  force  his  entrance  into  any  druggist’s  shop.  But,  as  the 
authority  for  stopping  him  was  derived  simply  from  himself,  naturally 
these  poor  men  found  themselves  in  a  metaphysical  fix,  not  provided 
for  even  by  Thomas  Aquinas  or  by  the  prince  of  Jesuital  casuists. 
And  in  this  excruciating  dilemma  would  occur  such  scenes  as  the  fol¬ 
lowing  :  — 

“Oh,  sir,”  would  plead  the  suppliant  porter  —  suppliant,  yet  semi- 
imperative  (for  equally  if  he  did,  and  if  he  did  not,  show  fight,  the 
poor  man’s  daily  5s.  seemed  endangered)  —  “  really  you  must  not, 
consider,  sir,  your  wife  and - ” 

Transcendental  Philosopher.  “Wife!  what  wife?  I  have  no 
wife.”  * 

Porter.  “  But,  really  now,  you  must  not,  sir.  Did  n’t  you  say  no 
longer  ago  than  yesterday - ” 

Transcend.  Philos.  “  ILoh,  pooh!  yesterday  is  a  long  time  agcw 
Are  you  aware,  my  man,  that  people  are  known  to  have  dropped 
lown  dead  for  timely  want  of  opium  ?  ” 

Porter.  “  Ay,  but  you  tell’t  me  not  to  hearken - ” 

Transcend.  Philos.  “  Oh,  nonsense  1  An  emergency,  a  shocking 
Emergency,  has  arisen  —  quite  unlooked  for.  No  matter  what  I  tck 


•  Vid*  “  Othello.” 


NOTES. 


607 


fan  in  times  long  past.  That  which  I  now  tell  you  is  —  that,  if  yc-i 
ion't  remove  that  arm  of  yours  from  the  doorway  of  this  most  res¬ 
pectable  druggist  I  shall  have  a  good  ground  of  action  against  you 
for  assault  and  battery.” 

Am  I  the  man  to  reproach  Coleridge  with  this  vassalage  to  opium  ? 
Heave*-  forbid  !  Having  groaned  myself  under  that  yoke,  I  pity,  and 
blame  aim  not.  But  undeniably,  such  a  vassalage  must  have  been 
created  wilfully  and  consciously  by  his,  own  craving  after  genial  stim¬ 
ulation  ;  a  thing  which  I  do  not  blame,  but  Coleridge  did.  For  my 
own  part,  duly  as  the  torment  relaxed  in  relief  of  which  I  had  resorted 
to  opium,  I  laid  aside  the  opium,  not  under  any  meritorious  effort  of 
self-conquest ;  nothing  of  that  sort  do  I  pretend  to  ;  but  simply  on  a 
prudential  instinct  warning  me  not  to  trifle  with  an  engine  so  awful  of 
consolation  and  support,  nor  to' waste  upon  a  momentary  uneasiness 
what  might  eventually  prove,  in  the  midst  of  all-shattering  hurricanes, 
the  great  elixir  of  resurrection.  What  was  it  that  did  in  reality  make 
me  an  opium-eater  ?  That  affection  which  finally  drove  me  into  the 
habitual  use  of  opium,  what  was  it  ?  Pain  was  it  ?  No,  but  misery. 
Casual  overcasting  of  sunshine  was  it  ?  No,  but  blank  desolation. 
Gloom  was  it  that  might  have  departed  ?  No,  but  settled  and  abiding 
darkness  — 

“  Total  eclipse, 

Without  all  hope  of  day !  ”  * 

iTet  whence  derived  ?  Caused  by  what  ?  Caused,  as  I  might  truly 
plead,  by  youthful  distresses  in  London ;  were  it  not  that  these  dis¬ 
tresses  were  due,  in  their  ultimate  origin,  to  my  own  unpardonable 
folly ;  and  to  that  folly  I  trace  many  ruins.  Oh,  spirit  of  merciful 
interpretation,  angel  of  forgiveness  to  youth  and  its  aberrations,  that 
hearkenest  forever  as  if  to  some  sweet  choir  of  far-off  female  interces¬ 
sions  !  will  ye,  choir  that  intercede  —  wilt  thou,  angel  that  forgivest  — 
join  together,  and  charm  away  that  mighty  phantom,  born  amidst  the 
gathering  mists  of  remorse,  which  strides  after  me  in  pursuit  from  for¬ 
gotten  days  —  towering  forever  into  proportions  more  and  more  colos¬ 
sal,  overhanging  and  overshadowing  my  head  as  if  close  behind,  yet 
bating  its  nativity  from  hours  that  are  fled  by  more  than  half  a  cen- 
ry  ?  Oh,  heavens  !  that  it  should  be  possible  for  a  child  not  sevea- 
**en  years  old,  by  a  momentary  blindness,  by  listening  to  a  false,  falsa 
frnisper  from  his  own  bewildered  heart,  by  one  erring  step,  by  a  mo- 
ion  this  way  or  that,  to  change  the  currents  of  his  destiny,  to  poisoffl 

^  m -  -  i-  -  -  - * - — — ^ 


*  Samson  Agonist©*. , 


608 


NOTES. 


the  fountains  of  his  peace,  and  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  to  lay  ths 
foundations  of  a  life-long  repentance  !  Yet,  alas !  I  must  abide  by 
the  realities  of  the  case.  And  one  thing  is  clear,  that  amidst  such  bit* 
ter  self-reproaches  as  are  now  extorted  from  me  by  the  anguish  of  my 
recollections,  it  cannot  be  with  any  purpose  of  weaving  plausible  ex¬ 
cuses  or  of  evading  blame,  that  I  trace  the  origin  of  my  confirmed  opium- 
eating  to  a  necessity  growing  out  of  my  early  sufferings  in  the  streets 
of  London.  Because,  though  true  it  is  that  the  re-agency  of  the&a 
London  sufferings  did  in  after  years  enforce,  the  use  of  opium,  equally 
it  is  true  that  the  sufferings  themselves  grew  out  of  my  own  folly. 
What  really  calls  for  excuse,  is  not  the  recourse  to  opium,  when  opium 
had  become  the  one  sole  remedy  available  for  the  malady,  but  those 
follies  which  had  themselves  produced  that  malady. 

I,  for  my  part,  after  I  had  become  a  regular  opium-eater,  and  from 
mismanagement  had  fallen  into  miserable  excesses  in  the  use  of  opium, 
did  nevertheless,  four  several  times,  contend  successfully  against  the 
dominion  of  this  drug  ;  did  four  several  times  renounce  it;  renounced 
it  for  long  intervals ;  and  finally  resumed  it  upon  the  warrant  of  my 
enlightened  and  deliberate  judgment,  as  being  of  two  evils  by  very 
much  the  least.  In  this  I  acknowledge  nothing  that  calls  for  excuse. 
I  repeat  again  and  again,  that  not  the  application  of  the  opium,  with 
its  deep  tranquillizing  powers,  to  the  mitigation  of  evils,  bequeathed  by 
my  London  hardships,  is  what  reasonably  calls  for  sorrow,  but  that 
extravagance  of  childish  folly  which  precipitated  me  into  scenes  natu¬ 
rally  producing  such  hardships. 

[In  the  latest  edition  of  his  works  De  Quincey  adds  this  note  also, 
respecting  Coleridge’s  personal  appearance  :  — ] 

“  From  some  misconception  at  the  press,  the  account  of  Coleridge’s 
personal  appearance,  in  the  paper  entitled  ‘  Coleridge  and  Opium 
Eating,’  -was  printed  off  whilst  yet  imperfect,  and,  in  fact,  wanting  ita 
more  interesting  half.  It  had  been  suggested  to  me,  as  a  proper  off-set 
to  a  very  inaccurate  report  characterizing  Coleridge’s  person  and  con¬ 
versation,  by  an  American  traveller,  who  had,  however,  the  excuse 
that  his  visit  was  a  very  hasty  one,  and  that  Coleridge  had  then  be¬ 
come  corpulent  and  heavy — wearing  some  indications  that  already 
(though  according  to  my  present  remembrance,  not  much  more  than 
forty-eight  at  the  time)  he  had  entered  within  the  shadows  of  prema¬ 
ture  old  age.  The  authorities  for  my  counter-report  are  —  1.  A  Bris¬ 
tol  lady  who,  with  her  sisters,  had  become  successors  in  a  young 
jfcdies’  boarding-school  to  the  celebrated  Hannah  More ;  2.  Words¬ 
worth,  in  his  supplementary  stanzas  to  the  ‘  Castle  of  Indolence  ;  ’  3 
Two  (if  not  three)  artists.  These  shall  be  first  called  into  court  at 


NOTES. 


609 


deposing  to  Coleridge’s  figure,  *. «.,  to  the  permanent  base  in  the 
seription  —  all  the  rest  being  fugitive  accompaniments.  One  of  thesa 
artists,  who  is  now  no  longer  such,  took  down,  in  the  year  1810,  at 
Allan  Bank,  Grasmere,  the  exact  measurements  of  both  Samuel  Tay¬ 
lor  Coleridge  and  William  Wordsworth  (at  that  time  the  host  of  Cole¬ 
ridge  and  myself).  His  memorandum  on  that  occasion  is  missing. 
But  as  he  found  the  two  poets  agreeing  in  height  to  a  hair’s-breadth, 
which  I  myself,  as  an  attentive  bystander,  can  vouch  for,  it  will  be 
sufficient  for  me  to  refer  the  curious  reader  to  the  Autobiography  of 
Haydon,  in  whose  studio  Wordsworth  was  measured  with  technical 
nicety  on  a  day  regularly  dated.  The  report  is  —  5  feet  10  inches, 
within  a  trifling  fraction  ;  and  the  same  report,  therefore,  stands  good 
to  a  nicety  for  Coleridge.  Next,  for  the  face  and  bearing  of  Coleridge 
at  the  time  referred  to  by  the  lady  (1796),  an  ample  authority  is  found 
in  Wordsworth’s  fine  stanzas  —  *  Ah  !  piteous  sight  it  was  ’  [  I  can¬ 
not  recall  the  two  or  three  words  of  filling  up]  ‘  when  be,’  . 

“  ‘  This  man,  came  back  to  us  a  wither'd  flow’r.’ 

That  was  perhaps  in  1807,  when  he  returned  from  Malta,  where  it  was 
that,  from  solitude  too  intense,  he  first  took  opium  in  excess.  But  ill 
1796,  whilst  yet  apparently  unacquainted  with  opium, 

“  Noisey  he  was,  and  gamesome  as  a  boy  — 

Tossing  his  limbs  about  him  in  delight. 

Happiest  and  most  genial  he  then  was  of  all  that  taste  the  morning 
breezes  of  life.  From  Wordsworth  we  learn  (what  afterwards  my 
own  experience  verified)  that  his  eyes  were  large,  and  in  color  wera 
gray :  — 

“  ‘  Profound  his  forehead  was,  but  not  severe  ; 

And  some  did  think’  [viz.,  in  the  Castle  of  Indolence ]  ‘  that  he  had  dttlc 
business  there.’ 

*  The  lady,  as  her  little  contribution  to  this  pic-nic  portrait,  insisted 
on  his  beautiful  black  hair,  which  lay  in  masses  of  natural  curls  half 
way  down  his  back.  Among  all  his  foibles,  however,  it  ought  to  be 
mentioned  that  vanity  connected  with  personal  advantages  was  never 
one:  he  had  been  thoroughly  laughed  out  of  that  by  his  long  experi¬ 
ence  of  life  at  a  great  public  school.  But  that  which  he  himself  ut¬ 
terly  ignored  female  eyes  bore  witness  to  ;  and  the  lady  of  Bristol 
assured  me  that  in  the  entire  course  of  her  life  she  had  not  seen  a 
poung  man  so  engaging  by  ’ys  exterior.  He  was  then  a  very  resur* 
•fccfion  of  the  old  knight’s  son  in  Chaucer,  of  him  that  bad  jousteal 
vith  infidels, 


€10 


NOTES. 


'*  ‘  And  ridden  in  B^lm&rie.5 

“  I  should  add  that,  whereas  throughout  his  thirty-five  years  of  opium 
he  wa3  rather  corpulent,  not  at  any  period  emaciated ,  as  those  wbo 
write  romances  about  opium  fancy  to  be  its  effect,  —  in  1796,  when  b< 
had  nearly  accomplished  his  twenty-sixth  year,  be  was  slender  in  the 
iegree  most  approved  by  ladies. 

“  Such  was  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  in  1796.  Ask  for  hiffi  Ua 
ears  later,  and  the  vision  had  melted  into  air.” 


Note  60.  Page  517. 

Lady  Madeline  Gordon. 

Note  61.  Page  517. 

*  The  same  thing :  ’ —  Thus,  in  the  calendar  of  the  Church  Fes¬ 
tivals,  the  discovery  of  the  true  cross  (by  Helen,  the  mother  of 
Constantine)  is  recorded  (and  one  might  think  —  with  the  ex¬ 
press  consciousness  of  sarcasm)  as  the  Invention  of  the  Cross. 

Note  62.  Page  517. 

*  Vast  distances  : '  —  One  case  was  familiar  to  mail-coach  trav¬ 
ellers,  where  two  mails  in  opposite  directions,  north  and  south, 
starting  at  the  same  minute  from  points  six  hundred  miles  apart, 
met  almost  constantly  at  a  particular  bridge  which  bisected  the 
total  distance. 


Note  63.  Page  521. 

De  non  apparentibus ,  §c. 

Note  64.  Page  521. 

Snobs,'  and  its  antithesis,  *  nobs,'  arose  among  the  internal 
factions  of  shoemakers  perhaps  ten  years  later.  Possibly  enough . 
the  terms  may  have  existed  mueh  earlier;  but  they  were  thea 
Irst  mads  known,  picturesquely  and  effectively,  by  a  trial  at 
tome  assizes  which  happened  to  fix  the  public  attention. 

Note  65.  Page  526 

*  Von  Trcil's  Iceland : '  —  The  allusion  to  a  well-known  chap 
ter  la  Von  Troil’s  work;  entitled,  *  Concerning  the  Snakes  o* 


NOTES. 


611 


loel&nd.*  The  entire  chapter  consists  of  these  six  words  —  ‘  Then 
are  no  snakes  in  Iceland 

Note  66.  Page  526. 

Forbidden  seat:  ’  —  The  very  sternest  code  of  rules  was  en 
•■forced  upon  the  mails  by  the  Post-office.  Throughout  England, 
only  three  outsides  were  allowed,  of  whom  one  was  to  sit  on  tfos 
box,  and  the  other  two  immediately  behind  the  box;  none,  unde? 
any  pretext,  to  come  near  the  guard;  an  indispensable  caution 
!>ince  else,  under  the  guise  of  passenger,  a  robber  might  by  any 
one  of  a  thousand  advantages  —  which  sometimes  are  created,  but 
always  are  favored,  by  the  animation  of  frank,  social  intercourse 
—  have  disarmed  the  guard.  Beyond  the  Scottish  border,  the 
regulation  was  so  far  relaxed  as  to  allow  of four  outsides,  but  not 
relaxed  at  all  as  to  the  mode  of  placing  them.  One,  as  before, 
was  seated  on  the  box,  and  the  other  three  on  the  front  of  the 
roof,  with  a  determinate  and  ample  separation  from  the  little 
insulated  chair  of  the  guard.  This  relaxation  was  conceded  by 
way  of  compensating  to  Scotland  her  disadvantages  in  point  of 
population.  England,  by  the  superior  density  of  her  popula¬ 
tion,  might  always  count  upon  a  large  fund  of  profits  in  the  frac¬ 
tional  trips  of  chance  passengers  riding  for  short  distances  of  two 
or  three  stages.  In  Scotland,  this  chance  counted  for  much  less. 
And  therefore,  to  make  good  the  deficiency,  Scotland  was  allowed 
a  compensatory  profit  upon  one  extra  passenger 

Note  67.  Page  528. 

‘  False  echoes  :  ’  —  Yes,  false!  for  the  words  ascribed  to  Napo¬ 
leon,  as  breathed  to  the  memory  of  Desaix,  never  were  uttered  at 
&P  They'’  stand  in  the  same  category  of  theatrical  fictions  as  the 
try  of  the  foundering  line-of-battle  ship  Vengeur,  as  the  vaunt 
General  Cambronne  at  Waterloo,  ‘  La  Garde  meurt>  rnais  ne 
w.  rend  pas,’  or  as  the  repartees  of  Talleyrand. 

Note  68.  Page  534. 

*  Wore  the  royal  livery :  ’  — The  general  impression  was,  that 
tile  royal  livery  belonged  of  right  to  the  mail-coachmen  as  their 
professional  dress.  But  that  was  an  error.  To  the  guard  it  did 
*©leng,  1  believe,  and  was  obviously  essential  as  an  official  war 


512 


NOTES. 


bint,  and  as  a  means  of  instant  identification  foi  his  person,  in 
the  discharge  )f  his  important  public  duties.  But  the  coachman, 
and  especially  if  his  place  in  the  series  did  not  connect  him  im¬ 
mediately  with  London  and  the  General  Post-office,  obtained  th« 
Bcarlet  coat  only  as  an  honorary  distinction  after  long  (or,  if  mi 
kng,  trying  and  special)  service 

Note  69.  Page  536. 

*  Turrets :  ’  — As  one  who  loves  and  venerates  Chaucer  for  his 
unrivalled  merits  of  tenderness,  of  picturesque  characterization, 
and  of  narrative  skill,  I  noticed  with  great  pleasure  that  the 
word  torrettes  is  used  by  him  to  designate  the  little  devices 
through  which  the  reins  are  made  to  pass.  This  same  word,  in 
the  same  exact  sense,  1  heard  uniformly  used  by  many  scores  of 
illustrious  mail-coachmen,  to  whose  confidential  friendship  I  had 
the  honor  of  being  admitted  in  my  younger  days. 

Note  70.  Page  537. 

‘  Mr.  Waterton  :  ’  —  Had  the  reader  lived  through  the  last 
generation,  he  would  not  need  to  be  told  that  some  thirty  or 
thirty-five  years  back,  Mr.  Waterton,  a  distinguished  country  gen¬ 
tleman  of  ancient  family  in  Northumberland,  publicly  mounted 
and  rode  in  top-boots  a  savage  old  crocodile,  that  was  restive  and 
very  impertinent,  but  all  to  no  purpose.  The  crocodile  jibbed 
and  tried  to  kick,  but  vainly.  He  was  no  more  able  to  throw  the 
Bquire,  than  Smbad  was  to  throw  the  old  scoundrel  who  used  his 
back  without  paying  for  it,  until  he  discovered  a  mode  (slightly 
immoral,  perhaps,  though  some  think  not)  of  murdering  the  old 
fraudulent  jockey,  and  so  circuitously  of  unhorsing  him. 

Note  71.  Page  538. 

1  Households  :  ’  —  Roe-doer  do  not  congregate  in  herds  like  the 
Sallow  or  the  red  deer,  but  by  separate  families,  parents  and 
"ihiidren;  which  feature  of  approximation  to  the  sanctity  of 
human  hearths,  added  to  their  comparatively  miniature  and 
graceful  proportions,  conciliate  to  them  an  interest  of  peculiar 
tenderness,  supposing  even  that  this  beautiful  creature  is  lti&» 
characteristically  impressed  with  the  grandeurs  of  savage 
fcrsst  Ufa. 


WOTES. 


613 


Rote  72.  Page  540. 

'Audacity:*  Such  the  French  accounted  it;  and  it  has 
struck  me  that  Boult  would  not  have  been  so  popular  in  London 
at  the  period  of  her  present  Majesty’s  coronation,  or  in  Man¬ 
chester,  on  occasion  of  his  visit  to  that  town,  if  they  had  been 
aware  of  the  inso’ence  with  which  ho  spoke  of  us  in  notes  written 
Kt  intervals  from  the  field  of  Waterloo.  As  though  it  had  been 
mere  felony  in  our  army  to  look  a  French  one  in  the  face,  he  said 
in  more  notes  than  one,  dated  from  two  to  four  p.  m.,  on  the  field 
of  Waterloo,  4  Here  are  the  English  —  we  have  them;  theyars 
caught  en  flagrant  delit.’  Yet.  no  man  should  have  known  U3 
better;  no  man  had  drunk  deeper  from  the  cup  of  humiliatic/a 
than  Soult  had  in  1809,  when  ejected  by  us  with  headlong  vi?- 
lence  from  Oporto,  and  pursued  through  a  long  line  of  wrecks  to 
the  frontier  of  Spain;  subsequently  at  Albuera,  in  the  bloodlt<i*t 
of  recorded  battles,  to  say  nothing  of  Toulouse,  he  should  hs.  hj 
learned  our  pretensions. 

Note  73.  Page  540. 

*  At  that  time  :  ’ —  I  speak  of  the  era  previous  to  Waterloo. 

Note  74.  Page  542. 

4  Three  hundred:  ’ —  Of  necessity,  this  scale  of  measurement, 
to  an  American,  if  he  happens  to  be  a  thoughtless  man,  must 
sound  ludicrous.  Accordingly,  I  remember  a  case  in  which  an 
American  writer  indulges  himself  in  the  luxury  of  a  little  fibbing, 
by  ascribing  to  an  Englishman  a  pompous  account  of  the  Thames, 
constructed  entirely  upon  American  ideas  of  grandeur,  and  con¬ 
cluding  in  something  like  these  terms  :  —  1  And,  sir,  arriving  at 
London,  this  mighty  father  of  rivers  attains  a  breadth  of  at  least 
two  furlongs,  having,  in  its  winding  course,  traversed  the  aston-» 
isliing  distance  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  miles.’  And  this  ths 
candid  American  thinks  it  fair  to  contrast  with  the  scale  of  tha 
Mississippi.  Now,  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  answer  a  pura 
fiction  gravely,  else  one  might  say  that  no  Englishman  out  of 
Bedlam  ever  thought  of  looking  in  an  island  for  the  rivers  of  a 
continent;  nor,  consequently  could  have  thought  of  looking  fa t 
Sue  peculiar  grandeur  of  the  Thames  in  the  length  of  its  counw 


814 


NOTES. 


tr  in  tlie  extent  of  soil  which  it  drains;  yet,  if  he  had  been  e® 
absurd,  the  American  might  have  recollected  that  a  river,  not  to 
be  compared  with  the  Thames  even  as  to  volume  of  water —  via., 
the  Tiber  —  has  contrived  to  make  itself  heard  of  in  this  world 
for  twenty-five  centuries  to  an  extent  not  reached  as  yet  by  any 
river,  however  corpulent,  of  his  own  land.  The  glory  of  tha 
Thames  is  measured  by  the  destiny  of  the  population  to  which  it 
ministers,  by  the  commerce  which  it  supports,  by  the  grandeur 
of  the  empire  in  which,  though  far  from  the  largest,  it  is  the  meet 
influential  stream.  Upon  some  such  scale,  and  not  by  a  transfer 
of  Columbian  standards,  is  the  course  of  our  English  mails  to  ba 
valued.  The  American  may  fancy  the  effect  of  his  own  valua¬ 
tions  to  our  English  ears,  by  supposing  the  case  of  a  Siberian 
glorifying  his  country  in  these  terms  :  —  ‘  These  wretches,  sir,  is 
France  and  England,  cannot  march  half  a  mile  in  any  direction 
without  finding  a  house  where  food  can  be  had  and  lodging; 
whereas,  such  is  the  noble  desolation  of  our  magnificent  country, 
that  in  many  a  direction  for  a  thousand  miles,  I  will  engage  that 
a  dog  shall  not  find  shelter  from  a  snow-storm,  nor  a  wren  find 
an  apology  for  breakfast.’ 

Note  75.  Page  546. 

*  Glittering  laurels  :  ’ —  I  must  observe,  that  the  color  of 
green  suffers  almost  a  spiritual  change  and  exaltation  under  tha 
effect  of  Bengal  lights. 

Note  76.  Page  559. 

‘  Confluent:  ’ — Suppose  a  capital  Y  (the  Pythagorean  letter) 
Lancaster  is  at  the  foot  of  this  letter;  Liverpool  at  the  top  of  th® 
right  branch;  Manchester  at  the  top  of  the  left ;  proud  Preston 
Rt  the  centre,  where  the  two  branches  unite.  It  is  thirty-three 
miles  along  either  of  the  two  branches;  it  is  twenty-two  mile® 
jdong  the  stem  —  viz.,  from  Preston  in  the  middle.,  to  Lancaster 
At  the  root.  There’s  a  lesson  in  geography  for  the  reader 

Note  77.  Page  560. 

*  Twice  in  the  year  :  ’  —  There  were  at  that  time  only  two  a® 
case  even  in  the  most  populous  counties  —  •  viz.,  the  Lent  Assise® 
i&d  the  Summer  Assizes. 


K0TE8. 


615 


Note  78.  Page  561. 

‘  Sigh-born  :  ’  —  1  owe  the  suggestion  of  this  word  to  aa 
ibscure  remembrance  of  a  beautiful  phrase  in  ‘  Qiraldrrj  Cam- 
Drensis  ’  —  viz.,  suspiriosce  cogitationes. 

Note  79.  Page  564. 

It  is  true  that,  according  to  the  law  of  the  case  as  established 
by  legal  precedents,  all  carriages  were  required  to  give  way  be¬ 
fore  Royal  equipages,  and  therefore  before  the  mail  as  one  of 
them.  But  this  only  increased  the  danger,  as  being  a  regulation 
very  imperfectly  made  known,  very  unequally  enforced,  and 
therefore  often  embarrassing  the  movements  on  both  sides. 

Note  80.  Page  564. 

'Quartering:' — This  is  the  technical  word,  and,  I  pre¬ 
sume,  derived  from  the  French  cartayer ,  to  evade  a  rut  or  any 
obstacle. 


Note  81.  Page  572. 

*  Averted  signs  :  ’  — I  read  the  course  and  changes  of  the  lady’s 
agony  in  the  succession  of  her  involuntary  gestures  ;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  I  read  all  this  from  the  rear,  never  once 
catching  the  lady’s  full  face,  and  even  her  profile  imperfectly. 

Note  82.  Page  578. 

‘  Campo  Santo  :  ’  — It  is  probable  that  most  of  my  readers 
will  be  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  Campo  Santo  (or  cem¬ 
etery)  at  Pisa,  composed  of  earth  brought  from  Jerusalem  for  a 
bed  of  sanctity,  as  the  highest  prize  which  the  noble  piety  of 
crusaders  could  ask  or  imagine.  To  readers  who  are  unac¬ 
quainted  with  England,  or  who  (being  English)  are  yet  unac¬ 
quainted  with  the  cathedral  cities  of  England,  it  may  be  right  to 
mention  that  the  graves  within-side  the  cathedrals  often  form  a 
flat  pavement  over  which  carriages  and  horses  migA  run  ;  and 
jpernap-s  a  boyish  remembrance  of  one  particular  cathedral, 
forces  which  I  had  seen  passengers  walk  and  burdens  carried,  &4 
fcbout  two  centuries  back  they  were  through  the  middle  of  8i 
in  London,  may  have  assisted  my  dream. 


